


A Different Kind of Beginning

by Feynite, SeleneLavellan



Series: Dirthalene [17]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: F/M, Feynite Fanwork, Pining and Cuddling and lots of physical contact, Reverse Newly Formed AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:03:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeleneLavellan/pseuds/SeleneLavellan
Summary: A retelling of my "A New Beginning" Story, where Selene is the one new to having a physical form, and has to learn how to manage in society from Dirthamen and his aspects.It goes about as well as you think.





	1. Chapter 1

Dirthamen is a bad leader. In this instance, a  _particularly_  bad one.

Because he knows quite well what he is meant to do, should any spirit in his territory become powerful enough to physically manifest in form. In the way of the Old Keepers. Such beings are dangerous. Potentially unstable, liable to incite rebellion and civil unrest, to challenge the authority of the current leadership, and create discord. His mother has explained the matter to him at length. The reasoning makes sense, though he thinks it is also circling around a central issue which has yet gone unmentioned. And that the most relevant matter to his mother’s concerns is that these spirits challenge their authority.

Dirthamen should have called together a council. He should have detained Devotion in a secure area, and he should be discussing her fate with his siblings and parents. So. He knows what he should be doing, as a leader.

That is not what he is doing.

Well. Mostly. He  _has_  moved Devotion to a secure location. The outpost was one of his most crucial during the initial war efforts, but it has been more than a thousand years since it was relevant to the security of his borders. And the locale, while very suitable for housing troops, is only accessible via a secure path through the crossroads, or else by flying over several miles of inhospitable terrain. It is not a particularly scenic nor desirable vista, though there  _are_  some intriguing views of a nearby canyon. Fear and Deceit escorted Devotion there, when Dirthamen began to suspect that the spirit was on the verge of self-embodiment.

He knows his mother would have advised him to dispose of her through different, and more permanent means, had she had any idea…

But Devotion is not a bad spirit. Nor, it would seem, a bad elf. This may be a terrible mistake, but it is one which is, currently, more easily reversed than the alternative. Shattering a spirit or killing a follower is a drastic measure. Irreversible, and requiring a great deal of consideration. Ordinarily Dirthamen would welcome the input of others on the right course to take. But when the counsel is a foregone conclusion, he does not think it qualifies as genuine assistance.

Even if most of the rest of his family should be more open than usual to debate, he knows his brother will not be. Falon’Din would see Devotion’s manifestation as an assault in and of itself. A declaration of rebellion.

Dirthamen does not know…

Well.

Dirthamen does not know a great many things, in the end. But for now, he intends to keep his own counsel on this matter. He holds many of his mother’s secrets, in the end, and one which became apparent to him quite early on is the simple truth that Devotion would not be  _allowed._

So he keeps one eye on her activities, via Deceit.

Thus far, Devotion has manifested as a dragon, and thence as an elf, and a white-feathered raven. She is attempting other forms. Last week it was a mountain goat, though the effort did not prove fruitful. Deceit is endeavouring to teach her things. Important things, about having a body, and about existing in the empire as an elf rather than a spirit. Sometimes these matters are very simple. Like eating, and sleeping, and washing. Devotion is a swift learner, and eager to please. What pathways her devotion once took have become  _tilted_ , since she took on a form. Where once the spirit was devoted to ideals, now the elf must learn to understand the intractable nature of reality.

It makes Dirthamen think of Purpose, sometimes.

It makes him even more wary of repeating past mistakes. And… hopeful, perhaps. Tentatively hopeful. That this time may go differently.

Sometimes, though, Deceit’s lessons become more complicated.

“You simply lie,” Deceit is saying to Devotion. Who has just finished a two hour nap in draconic form, sunning on some of the canyon rocks, and has now decided to wear her elven shape. Which is subject to quite a few changes, as it happens. She is still deciding what colours and figure and movement suits her best. But her current form is one she has kept through several transformations, now - white-haired, tall, long-limbed, and strong. Sharp, but not necessarily unfriendly in countenance.

She puffs up her cheeks, and then lets out a long breath. Which Dirthamen has learned indicates a certain degree of displeasure. It mimics the magical breath of her dragon form. He watches, as he takes some time for himself in his offices, and sorts through the latest agricultural reports.

“But it is just  _being wrong,”_  she protests. “It is blatant! How can you state something that is so plainly untrue?”

Deceit is amused. As it should be; deception is its very nature, after all.

“By lying,” they reply. “Look, I will do it right now - I am ten feet tall.”

Devotion’s face goes through several dramatic changes, before she unfolds her arms and gestures expressively.

“BUT YOU ARE NOT!” she protests. “You are not even - that is not even  _close_ , that is not even  _believable!_  It is just plain wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! At least if I told someone I was  _young_  it would be true in the sense that my physical form is. It would be a  _deception,_  because they could believe it, but it would imply something untrue. I understand that, you explained it very well! But I do not understand  _this._  It is not a lie, it is a  _wrong.”_

“Technically, I am wrong. But it is a lie, because I  _know_  I am wrong, and am willfully declaring something I know to be untrue,” Deceit attempts to explain.

Selene lets out another puff-cheeked breath, and narrows her eyes at them.

“Do it again,” she commands.

“Are you sure? I would not wish to upset you…” Deceit replies. At once telling the truth, but failing to mention how amusing the aspect is finding Devotion’s struggle. Just in this particular field.

“It is  _fine,_  I can handle it,” Devotion insists. Her eyebrows imply that she is still exceptionally cross, however.

Deceit resettles a few feathers, and then clears their throat.

“Alright. In that case, I am a spotted frog,” they claim.

Once again, Selene’s face goes through a journey of emotions, as she sits in place and seems to struggle with the entire process. Until, finally, she raises her arms - and her voice - in objection again.

“No you are NOT though, that is  _untrue_ , how could you even…!”

Deceit makes a sound of amusement.

Devotion lowers her arms, and then folds them tightly. She lifts her chin, as the line of her mouth tightens in displeasure.

“What is even the  _point?”_  she demands. “No one would believe something so blatantly false. Why even claim it?”

Deceit hops over to her, and despite her unhappiness, Devotion does reach out automatically to pet their feathers. Carding her fingers carefully through the ones on the back of their head, which tend to become the most itch, and also the most difficult to scratch.

“Because there are situation when it  _would_  be an effective deception,” Deceit explains. “For example, if you could not see me, then you would only have my word for what my shape was like. There will be times when you will not be able to simply omit details or talk around the truth. If you are to ever leave this place, and become part of the empire - you will have to lie.”

This explanation causes Devotion some unease.

But Dirthamen’s ability to focus upon it is broken as the signal for his door goes off. A light shining to indicate that one of his mute followers has approached; which likely means that he has lost track of several hours, and it is time for his yearly budgetary review. He reluctantly pulls his attention away from his aspect, even as Deceit and Devotion carry on with their conversation.

It is true, though.

If things are to, somehow, not end disastrously… lies will be required.


	2. Chapter 2

Dirthamen cannot, of course, actually spare Fear and Deceit for the task of helping to keep Devotion a secret for an  _indefinite_  length of time. There are matters of his territory that must still be attended to, after all, and despite being a bad leader, Dirthamen is unwilling to allow his ineptitude to sink to the levels where his brother will actually attempt to wrest control of his lands from him. In a serious, military campaign, anyway, and not just through pointed commentary and predatory trade negotiations.

So there have been times when Devotion has been left at the outpost mostly by herself. Several spirits have gravitated towards the area, which is good, because the newly-manifested Keeper has a tendency to become lonely when left unattended for too long. But thus far, no greater disaster than some emotional upheaval has resulted from Deceit and Fear’s absences.

Still. Dirthamen does not actually intend to ever leave Devotion alone for  _months._  That seems inadvisable for a host of reasons. However, a minor conflict with Falon’Din manages to unravel into a major conflict between his brother and Ghilan’nain, which eventually involves Andruil, and between one matter and another, that is what manages to happen. Fear and Deceit have no shortage of tasks to arrest their attention, and neither does Dirthamen himself. Three months manage to pass before any of them have truly registered the amount of time gone, and it is only just beginning to occur to Dirthamen as a problem when he receives a report from his palace guard that an unmarked elf has somehow managed to pass through the boundary wards, and has disabled several guards.

The elf is described as very powerful, white haired and female, and dressed in a cloak of feathers which makes her extremely difficult to track.

Dirthamen is familiar with that cloak.

Deceit made it. For Devotion.

“I will handle this,” he says. “Evacuate the area.”

His sentries do as instructed, and furthermore disable several wards which may have impeded him in combat. Dirthamen did not request this, but in hindsight, he can see where his assertion would be taken as a declaration of intent to fight the intruder in person.

Instead, however, he makes his way down to the breached courtyard. Uncertain of what Devotion will make of him, and regretful that Fear and Deceit are both too far away to easily recall. After all, Devotion knows of the Evanuris, but not that Fear and Deceit are connected to one. She will likely have no reason to trust him - and in fact, may have come with the full intent of enacting violence upon him. He is prepared for any range of negative responses to his presence, when he finally finds the woman in question.

Devotion is staring up at the palace walls with an assessing expression on her face, but zeroes in on him almost at once.

Dirthamen extends his hands, to demonstrate a lack of weaponry. He weighs several possible greetings, but his thoughts are also diverted by the knowledge that there will be even more to handle with this situation than the immediate reality of Devotion’s presence. There will be questions. An unmarked elf will be presumed to be Nameless, or from one of the camps. Word will reach his mother. A description of Devotion will, as well.

That will make matters even more complicated.

So he hesistates, and in that window of hesitation, Devotion scrutinizes him.

Whatever her conclusion, Dirthamen is not expecting her expression to light up. Nor for the air around her to brighten in joy. He is also not anticipating that Devotion will rush over and embrace him, and it makes him particularly glad that he has removed all others from the area; he thinks his guards would have reacted badly to the sight of a potential enemy flinging herself at him in that manner, and may have tried to harm her.

As it stands, the only harm done is to Dirthamen’s equilibrium, as he finds himself captured in notably strong grip, and then lifted and spun around.

Devotion makes a happy sound of triumph.

“I found my missing bird!” she exclaims. “I  _knew_  there were three! Des said if I followed the signs I would probably find Deceit, or Fear, but I didn’t think I would finally manage to find  _you!”_

She laughs.

Dirthamen blinks, and finds himself oddly preoccupied with her use of possessive terms.

Devotion sticks her face up against the side of his neck, and makes a pleased hum. She does not show much inclination to loosen her grip. The feather cloak around her shoulders ruffles with the extent of her emotional self-expression, but the sensations are, at least, quite pleasant.

“Hello, Devotion,” he manages, recalling himself enough to extend a verbal greeting.

“I picked a new name! It is ‘Selene’, you can call me that,” she replies, employing the same familiarity with which she might speak to his other aspects. Dirthamen supposes that is not unreasonable, given that she is - apparently - powerful enough to divine their connection. He blinks, again, and then inclines his own head. Though he is not certain she notes the gesture, given that her nose is still pressed up against his pulse point.

“Selene,” he acknowledges, verbally.

She hums, and then reaches up and taps a finger at the edge of his mask.

“What is this?” she asks him. “You are wearing a lot of strange things. And you are in  _this_ place! It is a lot bigger than my tower. Are you trapped here? Is that why you never came and stayed with me? The people here are mean, they tried to stop me coming inside and even when I said I was just looking for my birds, they didn’t want to talk and they tried to hit me. Did they hit you? I’ll break their bones if they did!”

Selene shifts her grip, and Dirthamen has to intervene in order to prevent her from carrying him out of his own courtyard.

She does not realize, then.

“No, I have not been captured,” he explains. “This is my palace. I am Dirthamen, who rules these territories.”

Selene pauses, for a moment.

She takes another long look at him. Her brow is slightly furrowed, and the air around her wavers somewhat with her consideration. A few sentiments manifest, but dissipate again before Dirthamen can properly identify them.

“…Oh,” Selene finally concludes. She glances back up towards the palace. “This is your house?”

“Yes,” he confirms.

“It is very big,” she notes, in a tone which implies this is a cause for some concern.

“Many other people live here as well,” he explains. “People are not supposed to come and go from it without permission. That is why they were impolite to you.”

“Hm,” Selene replies. She does not relinquish him from her grasp. “But I  _do_  have permission. I am me, and you are one of my birds. And Deceit and Fear gave me all the things I needed to get inside anyway. So, I am supposed to be here!”

Dirthamen cannot fault her reasoning. He finds his thoughts circling with preoccupation around her possessive terminology again, however.

“I was not expecting you to come. You are supposed to be remaining safely hidden at the outpost,” he replies, in an effort to clarify the… misunderstanding.

Selene puffs up her cheeks, and lets out a breath. It is very interesting to see the familiar expression in person, rather than through his connection to one of his other aspects. She scrutinizes his mask for another moment, before touching it with her hand.

“I did not want to stay there anymore. It was  _lonely,”_  she asserts. “Fear is  _always_  leaving, and sometimes Deceit goes, too, and then I am all by myself and I don’t like it. Deceit taught me how to lie. I can be in the empire now, there is no reason for me to stay at home! I’m stronger than them at fighting anyway, if anything bad happens I will just take care of it.”

“There are more factors to it than-”

“Can I see your face?”

Dirthamen hesitates. Selene stares expectantly at him, and taps one finger at the side of his mask.

“Why do you wish to?” he wonders.

“Because you are hiding it,” she replies, easily. “It makes me curious. Who are you hiding it from? Not me, you did not even know I was coming. Is it the empire? Do you show lies on your face? Deceit says I show mine on my face, but I have never seen anyone else do it.”

“My features shift frequently,” Dirthamen explains. “It is unsettling.”

He lifts a hand, and gently moves Selene’s own away from his mask. She blinks at his fingers, but after a moment, relents.

“I would not be unsettled,” she nevertheless assures him, before pulling back a step. Her hands remain on him as she examines his figure. Dirthamen blinks when she moves them to his hips and waist, and pats at his shoulders. As if she is trying to figure out his build, beneath the fabric of his robes. She slips a few fingers into his hood and fiddles with his hair as well, before he recollects the situation.

He must secure her inside, and then figure out what he can do about the altered situation.

“We should go inside,” he says.

Selene shrugs.

“Alright,” she agrees. “Are Fear and Deceit inside?”

“No. They are away.”

Her expression shifts into one which he can only describe as ‘disapproving’, but she does not resist as he moves her towards the entrance he came in by, and begins to lead her through the archway to the interior. The stairway should be clear also. He will get her to his chambers, he thinks, and then signal his sentries that it is clear for them to return. Possibly he will not mention the matter further, except to say that it is resolved. That may be the best approach. He will not be able to prevent word of this incident from reaching other ears at this point, so the next best step would be to classify it all as a secret.

That will not settle his mother nor his brother, however. But such matters require more lengthy consideration, and he doubts that they will respond too swiftly to a simple rumour.

Selene examines the walls with obvious fascination. Their withdrawal is slowed by the number of times which she stops and wishes to inspect some decoration upon the walls, or floors, or ceilings. The hidden doorways interest her the most, and Dirthamen is intrigued to note that she sees all of the ones which they pass. He is forced to intervene to prevent her from opening them. She will not be able to be unsupervised in the corridors - that would be true anyway, but it is particularly clear now.

“They are not safe,” he explains.

“Oh, I am very strong,” she assures him, with a dismissive wave.

He attempts to explain that it is not simply a matter of strength, but Selene does not seem to absorb this information as well as he would like. And the conversation is halted when they finally enter his chambers, and Selene takes immediate note of his bookshelves.

For the first time since their introduction, she ceases touching him, and instead his books are treated to her eager hands. Dirthamen finds himself moving quickly as well, picked out the tomes and scrolls in particular which are not safe for handling. It seems more expedient than trying to explain that they should not be touched carelessly, and why, and risking the possibility that Selene may simply decide to attempt it anyway. That conversation can be had once the danger has passed - Selene is thankfully too absorbed by the first shelf to catch her interest to take note of him for several minutes. Dirthamen avails himself of that time, and shoves several other sensitive items along with the books into a cupboard which locks.

He had not been expecting a guest.

“You have so many books!” Selene exclaims, happily. “This is almost twice as many as I have!”

It had been difficult to transport many things to the outpost, though Dirthamen had attempted to. Particularly when it became clear that Selene enjoys written things  _immensely._

He wonders if he should mention the library.

…Possibly not, if he wishes to keep Selene from going there straight away.

“You may read the…” Dirthamen begins, but trails off when Selene comes over to hug him again. She fits her arms neatly under his, and laughs, and lifts him somewhat. Then she does a turn again. Dirthamen braces his hands on her shoulders in order to keep from losing his balance and toppling sideways.

“I am so happy I found you!” she exclaims. “You have such a big house, and so many books! And you are so  _lovely!”_

He is not certain how to take - or process - that compliment. ‘Lovely’ is not something he has ever been called, he thinks. Not even by the most flattering of his followers, nor Sylaise’s.

“…Thank you,” he settles on, as a response. Then he gives one of Selene’s shoulders a pat. “You should not have come, however. It is not safe for you here. That is why Fear and Deceit took you to the outpost.”

Selene absorbs this response, and then seems to decide that she is going to ignore it.

“So you are Dirthamen, who is one of Leaders of the empire,” she says, instead. “But the empire is full of shit. Why do you lead an empire that is full of shit? I don’t understand. I wouldn’t need to hide from  _you,_  because  _you_  are one of my birds. Is it the other Leaders? I bet it is, Fear would not tell me much about them except to stay away, but Deceit said that if I had to go to one of them then it should be Dirthamen. Well, I guess I know why they said that, now. So it is the other leaders, then? I bet they do not like that you are mine.”

She nods to herself, as she draws her conclusion.

Dirthamen hesitates.

“…They would not approve of that concept,” he agrees, after a moment.

Selene nods again, and then moves away once more, to inspect more of his chambers.

“This is your room?” she asks. Then she points at one of the open doorways. “What is through there?”

“My bedchamber,” he tells her.

She gives him an odd look.

“I thought this was your bedchamber. Your room is more than one room?” she asks him.

Dirthamen nods, and then gestures to the rooms around them.

“These are my private chambers,” he explains. “Everything beyond the door we came in by is my allotted personal space, which cannot be entered without my leave. Because many people live in the palace, many people also have more private space than a simple bedchamber.”

“Oh,” Selene says, and considers the rooms around them again. “This is private?”

“Yes,” he confirms.

“Hm,” she says. “But I am allowed?”

“Yes,” he again confirms.

This makes her smile.

“Good,” she says. “Can I see beneath your mask now, in that case? Since no one else will come here and look, you oughtn’t be shy. And I want to know what your face looks like. Are those really your eyes? They are  _very_  pretty.”

This interaction is progressing very swiftly, Dirthamen decides, and in a multitude of unpredictable ways.

He suspects Selene may be socially inept. It would not be surprising, given that she has received most of her social tutelage from spirits and from his own aspects, which are not sources that are renowned for the comprehension of civilized social nuance. In which case, he supposes it does not really matter. If they are both socially inept, then they may as well simply be logical. And logically, there is no reason to deny her request.

He can simply apologize, if he offends.

Reaching up, Dirthamen pulls of his mask. He wonders what his eyes look like, that Selene should have called him pretty. She scrutinizes him once again, moving closer, and Dirthamen resists the urge to touch his face and try and discern what his features are doing. Instead, he glimpses himself in the reflection from a nearby wall panel.

Dark hair. Features vaguely similar to his mother’s. Blue eyes.

More or less what his body looks like of its own accord, in that case.

Selene frames his face in both of her hands. She herself looks to be wearing her ‘customary’ appearance. There is little to visibly betray her status as a dragon. Up close, and with his mask off, Dirthamen is more able to scrutinize her physical features, separate of her emotional and magical energies. There are some soft scales on her wrists - though from far away, they resemble simple sleeve decorations. And there are a few more scales, faintly, at her temples. Mostly disguised by her hair. Her canines look sharper than average, when she smiles; and her eyes seem uncommonly reflective, even without any particular light source shining off of them.

There is something incongruously appealing about seeing her face so close, and in person. It should not be appealing, because the situation is potentially disastrous. Dirthamen intends to file the sentiment away for later scrutiny, but it has barely occurred to him before Selene runs a thumb across his lips, and his thoughts stutter in surprise.

In his uncertainty at her action, his mouth vanishes; disappearing into a seamless stretch of skin, taking tongue and teeth along with it.

Dirthamen breaths through his nose.

Selene laughs in surprise.

“Where did your pretty lips go?” she asks him.

He concentrates for a moment, but his nerves are too addled, and he cannot muster the self-control to bring his mouth back. So after a second, he shrugs, and projects his voice instead.

“My features often change,” he explains.

To his utter consternation, Selene leans forward at this assertion, and kisses the empty patch of skin where his mouth had been.

“How very cute,” she decides. Which is not the usual response. Dirthamen does not know how to proceed - nor how to respond when she follows this assertion by lowering a hand and patting at his backside, once. And then winking at him.

She does not seem put-off by his shifting, at least. And he is saved from having to formulate a sufficient response by the sound of the call for his door going off. The sentries, he recalls - they would be concerned at his lack of response to them by now.

Quickly, Dirthamen takes a step back, and puts his mask on again.

“I must answer the door,” he says, and then gestures towards his bedchamber. “Please wait in there, where you will not be seen.”

Selene glances towards the doorway, and places her hands on her hips.

“Why?” she asks, narrowing her eyes, as if she suspects the person on the other side to be complicit in some ill deed.

“Because it…” Dirthamen begins, and then hesitates. His entreaties towards safety have thusfar not gained much of a response. Perhaps a different approach is needed.

“Because I would appreciate it,” he amends. “Please.”

Selene hesitates for a moment, but the new approach seems more successful. She heads for his bedchamber, first with a sigh, and then with a thoughtful sound as she actually gets inside of the room.

“Oh!” she says. “That is a  _nice_  bed. Maybe I should get acquainted with it…?”

Dirthamen supposes she is tired from her travels.

“You may,” he permits, and then shuts the bedchamber door. The alert for the front entryway goes off again.

This is a disastrous development. Poorly-timed in all regards.

But it is what it is, he supposes. He does not intend to let his family simply destroy Selene at this point, even if secrecy can no longer be maintained. But he will have to manage this situation carefully, in order to avoid violence or disaster.

To that end, he goes to answer to his sentries - and to tell them precisely nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

When Dirthamen returns to his rooms, he finds that Selene is, in fact, lying on the bed.

She is also naked.

Her scales are much more apparent when she is not wearing any clothing. The largest concentration of them is at her hips, and trailing down her thighs. But there are more on her collarbones, and her biceps as well. They match her hair, except that unlike her hair they shimmer when she moves, and gain an iridescent quality that is less apparent on the fainter scales.

Selene is sprawling out, so Dirthamen gets a very full view of her. The front side, anyway.

“This is a nice bed,” she says. “But it is missing something…”

Dirthamen wonders what it might be lacking. He does not use it often, and his aesthetic designers determined most of its qualities.

“What?” he wonders.

Selene smiles.

“You, writhing in the middle of of it,” she declares.

Dirthamen considers this.

“I do not see how that would contribute to a restful atmosphere,” he admits. Writhing implies movement, which would almost certainly dislodge Selene from her position - particularly if he was in the middle of the bed. Writhing also implies that he would be in pain, which seems ominous and possibly like a threat. Perhaps Selene has determined that he is, in fact, distasteful to her? Or deserving of retribution?

He remains by the doorway, uncertain of the situation, as Selene’s brow furrows a little bit.

“It would contribute to a  _sexual_  atmosphere,” she explains, sitting up more.

Ah!

Dirthamen reconsiders the situation, with that new information.

“You are attempting to seduce me?” he theorizes. “Why?”

Selene blinks at him, and then lifts a hand, and gestures towards his person.

“Because you are beautiful, obviously,” she says. “And I think it would be interesting. I never thought about having sex with one of my birds, but birds are not sexually attractive to me. Elves are, though, and you are an elf as well as a bird, as well as a dragon. Like me. I have only had sex with Des, and he says it is different between people with bodies, but he has never had a body so he could not explain it very well.”

Dirthamen takes his time to absorb the contents of her response. He had not really considered the likelihood that she would possess sexual inclinations. There were not many options for investigating such things, for someone of her situation, though a Desire spirit would be the most obvious route. And safer than engaging with some more visceral, like Lust or Gluttony. Dirthamen’s own explorations of the topic had been primarily through spirits as well, and while enlightening, he supposes he can see where someone might find that experience lacking in range, too.

He does not know what to make of being complimented so atypically again.

Selene pauses for a moment, and then glances down at herself.

“I am very attractive,” she says, definitively. This is true, so Dirthamen nods in agreement. The confirmation seems to please her. “So. Would you like to have sex with me? I can try a different line, if you prefer. Let me see… you have beautiful legs, I think I’d like to wear them on my shoulders. I bet you would sound wonderful if you were singing my name. Do you come here often? If you stick with me, then you will…”

Dirthamen listens in fascination as she lists several more lines. Did the Desire spirit teach them to her? He does not think they would have been in any of the books she received, and he knows Fear and Deceit did not teach them to her, because he himself is not familiar with any of them. All of them have a sexual bent, though in some cases he struggles to perceive it.

Eventually, though, Selene seems to run out.

“Were any of those appealing?” she asks him.

He reviews them.

“Not in and of themselves,” he admits. “But… I find myself interested, so perhaps the intended effect has still been achieved?”

Selene does a little jump in celebration.

Despite the overal sharpness and rigidity of her build, Dirthamen notes that she does have some qualities of…  _bounce,_  to her figure, too.

“Perfect! Take off your clothes, I  _really_  want to see you naked,” she commands. Dirthamen takes a moment more to consider. He thinks this may be a bad idea, though he is uncertain of why. Perhaps because he is in a position of authority? Whether Selene realizes it or not. Or perhaps it is because she does not seem to realize it, that it would be incorrect. After all, most of his family has engaged in some form of a sexual relationship with their underlings, including his mother.

“I am not certain if this is wise,” he admits.

Selene tilts her head at him.

“Why not?” she asks, and folds her arms. The pose suits her immensely.

“There is a significant power imbalance between us, which you may not be aware of,” he explains.

Selene frowns a little, and taps her arm with her fingers.

“I will not hurt you,” she tells him. “I have no intention of turning into a dragon right now. And even if I did, I still would not hurt you.”

Dirthamen nods in acknowledgement.

“That is good. However, I was speaking of myself,” he explains. “I am a Leader of the People, a ruler in an empire which has significant hostility towards your nature and being. Your protection is dependant upon me, and that would make it difficult for you to refuse me.”

“But… I have no desire to refuse you anyway,” Selene says, and then gives him another familiar look. It is the one which she tends to give to Fear, whenever Fear cautions her against something. Usually right before she proves the caution unnecessary. “You are certainly powerful, but that does not matter. I am very powerful too, but that also does not matter. And if it matters later, then we will deal with it then. Do you want help? Taking off your clothes?”

He glances down at himself. He is only in his usual robes.

“I can attend to it,” he assures her, and then hesitates only a moment more before he begins to untie the fastenings of his outfit. He is not terribly well-versed in these matters, so perhaps it is wise to defer? But Selene cannot be very well-versed in these matters  _either,_  so perhaps it is only irresponsible instead…

Dirthamen is still considering things when she moves closer. Her fingers are, somehow, more deft than his at undoing the fastenings. But she is not incautious, and when she sets aside his first layer, her hands are gentle with him.

The lower layer is more complex. Dirthamen takes over, but Selene still seems very interested in touching him. For purely superfluous reasons, it would seem, as she runs her hands over his shoulders again, and then trails her touch back up to the edges of his mask. When she moves to pull it away, she pauses, and Dirthamen realizes at length that she is waiting for him to object.

He nods, instead, and Selene pulls his mask away.

“Oh!” she says. “You look different. Amazing…”

There is no reflective surface he can easily see from here. He has no idea what his countenance resembles, but Selene does not seem off-put by it. She stares at him in fascination, and reaches up to run her fingers over the ridges of his browns. Between one set of eyes and another. Then she presses her fingers to his lips, and interrupts his attempts at undoing his belt by leaning in close and kissing him again.

It feels very different when he has lips at the spot. Soft and warm, with just a little pressure. Selene pulls back and looks at him. He looks back, and then leans in, and reciprocates the gesture. He presses his lips to hers with care, chasing their softness, and abandoning his belt for a moment. Selene hums just a little - a small sound that tingles against his mouth - and then sinks her fingers into his hair. It feels short, at the moment. He rests his own hands against her hips. Her scales feel smooth, and when he presses his fingers curiously to the spaces between them, he finds that the skin there is very soft. Selene makes a pleased sound at him.

“That feels good,” she says. One of her hands moves to the collar of his shirt, and she frowns a little as she rumples the fabric. “You’re still not naked, though. Do your stars go all the way down?”

Dirthamen is not certain what she is referring to, and likely would not know even if he was. So he only shrugs, and then they both return to the task of undressing him. His thoughts are uncommonly preoccupied with the scales on Selene’s hips, however, and so he does not realize what she had meant until he is finally down to his small clothes. Then a glance at his skin reveals that it is currently covered in small, shimmering freckles.

Like imitation scales. But unsuccessful ones. The effect is too luminous and unsubtle. Selene seems very intrigued by them, though, as she presses her fingers to them, and then leans in and licks one on his shoulder. She presses her teeth around it, too. He feels the sharp points, but they do not dig in enough to qualify as a bite.

It is… a very interesting sensation.

Dirthamen finishes divesting himself of his last article of clothing, and Selene takes a step back to give him her own inspection. He follows the line of her gaze, and finds that his form has taken a rather inviting shape. And is glowing more towards his genitalia.

…It is not a subtle effect.

“You are very attractive too,” Selene declares, nevertheless. She takes him by the hand, then, and determinedly leads him towards his bed. They kiss again, and after some more curious touching, end up sitting at the side of the mattress for a moment. Deliberating, Dirthamen thinks. There are a lot of decisions to be made with regards to sexual activities. Positioning and boundaries and so forth. It is not a negotiation he has much familiarity with, given that spirits tend to innately understand many things without explanation.

“So… what sort of sex do you like?” Selene asks him, after a moment.

“I…” Dirthamen begins, and then trails off. What sort of sex  _does_  he like? He knows, but he is not certain if it is the only kind he might enjoy, nor of how he ought to articulate it. “I enjoy… wanting, things?”

“Hmm,” Selene replies, and taps her chin thoughtfully. “My experience may too theoretical for this at the moment. Would you mind if I called in a spirit? To help?”

Dirthamen would not, and so he shakes his head. Selene nods, and then he feels the Dreaming vibrate somewhat differently around her, as more of her consciousness falls towards it. It makes him aware of his own split attention - which also makes him aware that for a few moments, he was not focused on it. But Fear and Deceit are both heading back. This dilemma now takes precedence over the matters they were handling. And the relationships which his aspects have forged with Selene have added nuance to their combined-and-separate beings which Dirthamen is still endeavouring to figure out.

Selene closes her eyes, and then a moment later, he is aware of a spiritual presence joining them in the room.

It is bright. Fiery. Chaotic and lustful, but also focused in a way that, in Desire spirits, can create concerns of corruption. Dirthamen detects no other alarming qualities, however. The presence is decidedly masculine, and holds a very elven shape as it solidifies in his bedroom. Its eyes gleam, and widen in a flare of surprised - or alarm, perhaps - as it regards Dirthamen.

Selene smiles at it.

“Des!” she exclaims. “Dirthamen and I are going to have sex! Would you help us, please?”

The Desire spirit - Des - assesses them. Dirthamen feels a brief tingling flare, like fingers tentatively brushing over his spine. And then, after a moment, sinking deeper. He allows it. It feels warm, and only slightly intrusive, and it cannot risk his integrity; Fear and Deceit would banish it in short order if it tried.

After a moment, Des is practically vibrating in delight.

“My time,” the spirit says, eagerly, “has  _come.”_


	4. Chapter 4

“You look like a giant floating eye,” Selene informs him, as she slides into the bathing pool.

Dirthamen considers this. He cannot blink, but then, perhaps the eye has no lid? He has tentacles, though. Very thin ones, which are providing him with significant information about his environment anyway. And he can still discern most of the aspects of his surroundings.

“Ah,” he says. His voice drifts up, watery and serene, and he continues to float in the bathing pool. It is very relaxing. There are not many extraneous parts for him to concern himself with, and the water is warm without being uncomfortably hot. Deceit is pretending to be him for the duration of a very long meeting, so much of his energy is under their purview at the moment. And Fear is busily gathering information in anticipation of the latest Council Meeting. Which Dirthamen’s mother just decided to call, despite recent disputes making it inadvisable.

Given that Dirthamen has currently barred all visiting evanuris from his lands, however, that may be her only means of contacting him. Which does not bode well for his hopes that leaving the matter of Selene utterly unspoken of would somehow curtail the issue.

“It’s cute,” Selene declares. She sighs as she settles into the water herself. It is probably a good thing that Dirthamen cannot-quite ‘see’ her right now. He has never thought of himself as a person with a high libido, but apparently, under the right circumstances, he can become very sexually active. Although some of what they do is only marginally sexual. Selene is very tactile, and her Desire Spirit companion is not limited in his own scope, either.

But still. He has a need to escape the physical right now, or at least some complexities of it.

Selene’s presence is not unwelcome, all the same.

“Can I cuddle you when you are like this?” she asks him.

Dirthamen considers it.

“I believe I am too fragile,” he admits. His voice resonates oddly again. He is not certain what is causing the effect, and he focuses his attention on some of the aura surrounding himself as he loses several minutes in contemplation of it. Selene only makes a disappointed sound, and then settles into her own bathing. The gentle slosh of the water and the brightness of her aura provide pleasing background ambiance.

Her presence also heats the pool water by a few more degrees, but not to the point of discomfort. Dirthamen muses.

Selene had been very pleased to see Fear and Deceit again. She had touched them excessively, which he had known to be her tendency for reunions, and had carried Deceit around for the better part of a day. Dirthamen believes she likely would have done the same to Fear, but Fear declined her request, and so she had only sighed and petted their feathers. Her familiarity with his aspects had not seemed indicate a preference, though - simply closeness, which she had then immediately turned and extended back towards Dirthamen as well.

She seems to comprehend that they are interconnected, but not the exact particulars of it. Dirthamen had hesitated to explain. It is a sensitive topic.

Eventually, his form begins to shift again. Not back into an elf, but into a form more suitable for contact. Following his own internal cues, he drifts over towards Selene. Who pauses in her bathing, and ventures a tentative hand towards him.

“I believe you may cuddle me now,” he estimates.

Selene chuckles, and then obligingly scoops him into her arms.

“Why are you a jellyfish?” she asks him, and she sets about petting him. It is a strange sensation in this form. He feels it very keenly, but it is not scintillating - he does not have parts to be scintillated, currently - and yet, it is  _sensitive._  Just shy of being too sensitive, in fact. He considers his answer to her question, as his energies compensate for the tactile sensations by vibrating lowly.

Selene radiates pleasant surprise.

“It is… relaxing,” he confides.

“Oh,” she says. “Good, then. I’m glad you’re relaxing.”

On that note, she leans in, and once again kisses Dirthamen on a smooth expanse of skin which can offer no lips to reciprocate with. He vibrates at a slight higher frequency, however, and this seems to increase her own happiness.

That is good.

He thinks relaxing with Selene would be very effective, if she was not the cause of so much of his concern.


	5. Chapter 5

“Des says he wants a body,” Selene explains to him, two months into the disaster that is her still-as-yet-unclarified presence in his palace. She is sitting in his lap. His Chief Administrator of Minor Settlement Affairs had concluded their meeting early, when Selene arrived, despite her assurances that he could continue. Dirthamen will probably have to reschedule their appointment, but it was a fairly routine update on territory management.

“I told him he should just figure out how to manifest his own, but he says it is  _too hard._ Which is rich, considering that he has told me that there is no such thing as ‘too hard’, but he is being entirely too whiny about it and says you should make him a body instead. He would not shut up about it until I promised to ask you.”

Selene wriggles her hands more firmly underneath his robe.

Dirthamen considers the prospect of a  _second_  spirit manifesting a physical form in his territories, and makes his decision.

“I will have a body created for Des,” he determines. It may be wise to give Selene more physical companions anyway. She seems to enjoy tactile contact a great deal, to the point where he, Fear, and Deceit are not always sufficient to her requirements. Particularly when they are busy with matters of the empire, and the continued dispute between his brother and the other leaders. Mother has been sending increasingly strong-worded messages to him. He suspects she is unhappy that she has not discovered a means past his protections yet, but Dirthamen has been amplifying them quite a bit over the best several years, in preparation for a fiasco of this magnitude.

Selene sighs, and then shrugs.

“He has a list of things he would like,” she informs him.

“He may provide the body crafter with it,” Dirthamen decides, and then considers who he might assign to the task. Fervour will probably be the best choice. They are discreet, easily distracted, and very good at their job. He lifts Selene and deposits her into his chair, excusing himself for a moment to go and send a runner to inform Fervour of their new assignment, and also to find the required Desire Spirit. When he returns to Selene, she pulls him into her own lap instead.

“I want to go see the city,” she tells him.

This is not the first time she has made such a request. It has become her most popular one of late, and Dirthamen has found that most of his explanations for why this is a bad idea have fallen flat.

“It is not secure enough,” he nevertheless reiterates.

“Well then you should come with me, if you are so worried,” Selene decides.”You and Fear and Deceit. And Des can test out his new body, too. We will all go and look at things and meet people. I want to introduce myself to everyone!”

This, of course, is the problem. If Selene wished to go to the city simply to see it, and would wear her cloak and not interact with people, then it might be permissible. But instead, she wishes to go and meet people. And Dirthamen cannot help but think that would be disastrous. The palace rumour mill is already talking almost exclusively about her, and the denizens of his population at-large are far less prone to keeping secrets relatively confined.

“The more people who know about you, the more likely it is that my family will discover the truth about you,” Dirthamen tries to explain, again.

Selene waves a hand.

“I am not worried about your family. They are not good people,” she insists.

“They are dangerous people, and they are powerful people,” Dirthamen replies, not bothering to refute her assessment. It is not incorrect.

“Like me,” Selene determines.

This, too, is not wholly incorrect. And yet, it also is.

“Selene,” Dirthamen says, with enough severity that she meets his gaze, and does not fiddle with the edge of his mask. He considers his options. Options which he has been considering, at length, for some time now. She needs to  _understand._  She needs to be aware of the truth of these circumstances, no matter what detriment it does to her opinion of him.

“You are powerful. But I have killed many powerful beings, in my life, and of my family I have killed the least,” he explains. “You are powerful enough to cause them fear. But you would never be able to defeat any of us, not as you are now.”

Selene frowns at him.

“You do not know how powerful I am,” she says, her tone as serious as his own. “I have never shown any of you the real extent of it. How could you know what I am capable of?”

Dirthamen inclines his head.

“The reverse is true as well,” he points out. “You have not seen my strength, nor that of my kin.”

For a long moment, Selene regards him. The emotions in the air are difficult to parse. Her expression is even more inscrutable. But at length, she lets out a breath, and then settles him back onto his feet. Dirthamen stands, and straightens his robe some. She follows him up.

“Alright. Show me, then,” she decides.

It takes Dirthamen a moment to follow her meaning.

“Show you… my strength?” he surmises.

Selene nods.

“Yes. And I will show you mine,” she decides.

After a moment, Dirthamen glances around the office they are in. It would not be a suitable space for any kind of demonstration. And as he considers it, there would really only be a limited number of places in his territories that would be. Far fewer still that would provide the necessary privacy.

“I will have to think,” he determines.

“What about?” Selene asks.

“Where to do such a thing.”

“Oh! Well… we could go to my tower,” she suggests, but Dirthamen must shake his head.

“That is too far,” he admits. “I cannot be away from here for very long. There are too many matters requiring my presence. But, there is a solution. I only must consider it.”

Selene shrugs, accepting this, and after a few moments acquiesces to leaving him to his contemplation as well. She goes to find Des, to make certain that he is adequately informed of his impending embodiment, and to help him prepare for it as well. This gives Dirthamen time to consider the best options, and the availability of them, and then begin to make the necessary preparations to access one of his old labyrinths. There is a suitable one located outside of the city, which has not yet been dismantled. It should be suitable for the task, given certain aspects of the design, but he cannot commit it to a task like without making some personal modifications to it either. There are some others which might prove more sufficient, but none close enough at hand.

He sets to work.

It takes several weeks to modify the labyrinth. Selene protests - but she also listens. She is bored, but the embodiment of her companion distracts her enough that she is willing to be patient. Dirthamen tasks Des with maintaining that level of distraction, which is something that the newly-embodied elf seems adept at. He assigns one of his personal guard as Des’ official mentor, but Des insists that she is ‘boring’ and otherwise inadequate, and at length Dirthamen finds Fear is needed to help keep everything in line so often, that doing so simply becomes the aspect’s primary occupation. It means he has fewer eyes to spare for his brother’s activities, but Falon’Din has chosen to read Dirthamen’s withdrawal as a sign of solidarity, so he is not being as aggressive with him as before.

Instead, most of his efforts are focused on the rest of the family. Dirthamen would ordinarily feel guilty. But for some reason, he does not. Perhaps he is simply too distracted to dwell upon the matter, in the way that he ordinarily would.

The modifications to the labyrinth would go much more quickly if he could assign others to the task. But discretion is paramount, and so Dirthamen handles it himself, when his duties allow. He reshapes the wall and takes advantage of several incorporated spatial distortions, and even pursues a few theoretical concepts to promising results, before ultimately putting them aside and focusing on what is needed for this particular venture. A large amount of shielded space, and targets, and sufficient precautions to ensure that their activities are not noteworthy or detrimental to the surrounding environs.

Dirthamen is not wholly satisfied with his work, but it is suitable by the time he perceives Selene to be reaching some sort of breaking point with the situation.

“I am going to the city,” she tells him, striding into his office one morning. Des is following behind her, and when Dirthamen looks at him, he simply shrugs.

Dirthamen looks back at Selene.

“Not today,” he tells her. “Today, we are going to the arena.”

Selene opens her mouth, as it to argue, and then pauses. Her brow furrows slightly.

“What arena?” she asks.

“The arena I have prepared for our test of strength,” Dirthamen replies.

This proves to be an acceptable response, because Selene’s expression immediately brightens.

“It is ready?” she asks him.

“It is,” he confirms. “I could do more, but it should prove adequate for the time being.”

“Oooh,” Des says, lighting up as well. “This I  _have_  to see! Are you both going to whip out your dragons and measure?”

Dirthamen blinks.

“Size is irrelevant,” he explains. “And you cannot come. Only Selene and I will be present, for reasons of safety and security.”

Des adopts a beseeching - and surprisingly effective - expression, but Dirthamen remains firm on that point. And after a moment, Selene seems to be in agreement with him. Or is perhaps so eager to go somewhere outside of the palace that she does not wish to risk the outing by arguing on behalf of Des. The newly-embodied elf eventually leaves, shutting several doors dramatically behind him and announcing that  _he_  is going to the city. Which makes Selene upset, but only for a moment.

She takes Dirthamen’s arm as he leads her down through the palace corridors, to the eluvian which will bring them to the labyrinth. They earn several polite nods and bows along the way. The palace manager had, initially, appointed Selene the title of ‘honored guest’, but lately that has been amended to ‘consort’. Dirthamen does not suppose it is inaccurate, and any further clarifications on his part would only worsen the situation, so it has been permitted to stand. Many of his followers seem curious of it, but also eager to avoid irritating Selene, and so there have been no repeat instances of violence since her initial arrival.

Des, he knows, has also been tentatively awarded a designation as ‘consort’. More than one of his advisors has inquired after the situation, but none have so far persisted past Dirthamen’s silent stare in response.

Selene complains of the crossroads itching her scales, but the trip is only a short one, and then they are through to the labyrinth. Massive walls stretch up above them, capped with a shimmering magical dome. The local wildlife has become drawn to the energies of the place, and in the time since its creation, more than a few plants have begun to encroach upon its outer walls. The effect is visually striking, and it seems to resonate with Selene, who goes uncommonly silent and wide-eyed as she stares at it all.

“This is it?” she asks.

“Yes,” Dirthamen confirms.

“You built this…?”

“Yes,” he confirms again. “Though, the initial structure was assembled by a construction crew, and many of its functions were designed by craftsmen dedicated to such tasks.”

Selene is quiet for a long moment. Dirthamen permits it. Watching her as she moves towards the walls, and examines the plants, and searches for something. After a few minutes, he guesses what she might be looking for, and with a raised hand, bids the entryway to appear. The door manifests in a rumbling of shifting tiles, and a brief flare of magic.

After a moment more, Selene turns and looks at him. For the first time, she seems uncertain not only of their surroundings, but also of Dirthamen himself.

It is reasonable. The labyrinths do not give off a welcoming atmosphere.

But it still makes him unaccountably sad.

“Shall we?” he asks. As more than a formality. If Selene would be willing to set aside the matter, and concede that she does not truly understand her situation, then this would not be necessary.

She meets his gaze, however, and then nods resolutely.

“I will show you,” she declares.

One way or another, Dirthamen supposes that she will.


	6. Chapter 6

The interior of the arena is not as visually striking as the exterior. Dirthamen leads Selene inside, and watches as she takes stock of their surroundings. The chamber is not brightly lit, but some sunlight sinks in through the dome overhead. Selene’s footsteps can be heard across the floor.

Dirthamen’s cannot.

“What are we-” Selene begins.

Her question is interrupted when the floor opens up beneath her, and drags her down into the bowels of the labyrinth below.

There is the sharp sound of her surprised inhalation, and then the chamber is silent. But of course, the arena is not empty, and Dirthamen’s awareness of Selene does not abate. The walls shimmer, and the entrance disappears. The exit manifests on the far side of the room. Dirthamen chances his shape, unfolding into his lesser draconic form. The larger would require Fear and Deceit’s presence, and if needed, he will call them. But for the time being, he moves silently on four legs. Wings drooping, tail dragging, as the he sees the layers of the arena through six shifting eyes, and settles himself in front of the exit.

Selene lands in the lower reaches of the maze.

“What are you doing?” she demands of him. Not frightened, but irritated. The energy of it snaps around her, like flames. Dirthamen almost expects her to change forms herself, but after a moment, she remains an elf.

“I am at the exit,” he replies. “All you must do is leave the arena. If you can do that, then I will concede your greater strength. If you wish to forfeit at any time, you may.”

Selene frowns.

“And how does this demonstrate  _your_  strength to  _me?”_  she counters.

“Perhaps it will not satisfy you,” Dirthamen concedes.

He almost expects Selene to argue the point. There are stairways around her, but no clear route back up to the arena. The ceiling above her is long and at the top, reflective. She stares upwards. Magical light shines in her eyes, and reflects back down at her, and after a moment, her lips thin. The irritation in her aura gives way to something more resolute.

She begins to move.

Dirthamen watches her approach the maze with interest, past the sinking sense of doom that persists in him. He rests his chin atop the arena’s smooth floor, and moves his eyes to the underside of his neck. The better to watch through the layers of the labyrinth, as Selene climbs stairways and jumps across pits, and moves down and then up, and finds mirrors and dead ends and passageways that turn in upon themselves. There are no true dangers in this maze, not yet, but it is not an easy cage to navigate.

Still, it is some time before she transforms into her long, bright draconic form, and attempts to simply break through the ceiling. She finds herself weighed down and dropped into one of the bottomless pits beneath it instead.

Selene falls for thirty-eight minutes, before she finally manages to get back out.

She takes a break at that point. Curling at the side of the drop, and glaring up towards the ceiling. Though she should not be able to see past it, her gaze unerringly moves to where he is sitting and watching from above.

“This is not a fair test,” she tells him. Her tone is unexpectedly calm, however, and her expression is one he has come to associate with thoughtfulness on her part. “You built this place, and it is designed to keep me from even managing to fight you. But that is your point, isn’t it? The palace, all those big buildings, the great city that people talk about… they are like this. Even my tower was not built by me. I am not going to be able to fight on fair grounds, am I?”

Dirthamen feels a strange mixture of pride and shame curl in his stomach, and sink into the floor beneath him.

“You are not,” he agrees.

Selene makes a thoughtful noise, and then rests for a while longer.

When she wakes, she begins to move through the strange and darkened corners of the maze. Twisting  _beneath_  the stairwells, and throwing herself into the dark pits of her own accord. It takes her far less time to get back out of them, now that she understands the trick of them. She repositions several mirrors, such that it becomes harder for Dirthamen to track her movement, and at length, she manages to shrink herself down and squeeze her way through a gap in one of the maze’s sequences, and makes her way up to the next level.

This one is not so indifferent in the nature of its perils.

There is a corrupted Spirit of Deception bound to the level. It takes on the form of a crow, and tries to lead Selene into traps that contain painful spells and sharpened weapons, passageways that just lead back down to the maze level she has just escaped, and false exits. Selene seems to become aware of its trickery early on, but she does not shatter it. Hours pass, and the trial takes longer than Dirthamen had expected, when he imagined what might happen if Selene should make it to that level, and should figure out Corrupted Deception’s tricks so early on.

He does not figure out that Selene is attempting to locate the binding spells that are keeping Deception in the level until she has already done so.

“If you free it, it will return to tricking elves into fatal accidents,” Dirthamen informs her.

“I will not,” Deception says. “I will not, I swear it. I would not wish to be caught again. Please, Selene, if you do not help me, he will break me apart when all of this is over. He will take the pieces of me and use them to fuel yet more places like this. I will become nothing, he will break me into  _nothing,_  Selene, I do not deserve that, do I?”

Deception rocks back in its place, then, as if struck. Its aura spirals in wild simulations of distress. It is a very convincing act, as it begs Selene for help, and claims that Dirthamen is already attempting to break it apart. Selene looks conflicted, and turns her gaze up towards the ceiling again. To what should only be a reflective surface, and yet, to where Dirthamen remains. Watching.

She looks back towards Deception.

“I know you are faking it,” she says.

The crow wavers mid-air.

After a moment, it gives up the show, and the form it has taken. Reverting to something small and dark and less clearly defined, diminished by the ineffectiveness of its lies. It had been very powerful when Dirthamen had first captured it. But that had been some time ago, now, and it has had little to feed on in its imprisonment. A certain hollowness to its nature has come towards the forefront.

_“Please…”_  it begs.

Selene looks upwards again.

“Is it true?” she asks him. “Will you break it apart?”

“Yes,” Dirthamen confirms, because that is the answer. The spirit is corrupted, and has proven itself malevolent and dangerous. It is no longer powerful enough to be of use in the labyrinths, and it cannot be released. The only thing that remains is to end it, and let the pieces of it become something new.

Selene breaks the wards binding it to the maze.

Deception shatters with them, weak as it is. Selene’s horror escapes her, and she rushes forward. Gathering up the shards and hastily thrusting them into the Dreaming, clearly struggle to find currents of it that do not simply feed back into the maze itself. Dirthamen watches her make the attempt, and watches her fail. The shards of Deception are gathered by the labyrinth’s engine, and stored away for his own examination.

Frustration breaks through, and anger, and a surprising grief. Selene knew Deception was lying and attempting to bring her to harm. But that does not seem to matter. Dirthamen feels fresh guilt. Spirits are what they are, after all. It is hard to take offense at Deception’s lies, when that is its nature. And it had seemed to build an odd rapport with Selene, for all that the spirit was self-serving. She keeps hold of a shard that is shaped vaguely like a feather, and rather than trying to push it into the Dreaming, she folds it into the pocket of her coat.

As she rises again, and sets out to find her way to the next level of the maze, she does not speak to Dirthamen again.

The highest level of the maze is modeled after a village in Dirthamen’s territories. There are a few spirits bound to it, to create the illusions of villagers, but Selene does not attempt to break their bonds. These ones are not corrupt, however. Only performing a task, as they guide Selene through traitorous levels of the maze with equal amounts of helpfulness and sabotage. At length, however, the ‘leader’ of the village orders them to attack, and so they all become hostile. Chasing Selene through images pulled from the dreaming, echoing thoughts which Fear had taken from her own mind, and binding her with spells until she is too heavy to fly. Until she must change, and change again, fighting for the breath in her lungs and trying to find new strength in her limbs, and nearly falling back down to the first level of the maze all over again.

She breaks through the ‘sky’ above the village with fire. Leaving the spirits behind her, and shattering the barrier. It rips through her scales in places. Red ribbons of blood trail after her, before Dirthamen can successfully patch over the broken floor, and prevent more damage as Selene crashes back down into it. Her dragon form twists. Claws scramble against the wall of the arena, and flames lick outwards from the maelstrom of emotions around her.

Dirthamen waits.

It is sooner than he expects, even so, when she charges at him. Her claws sink into his wings and her teeth close around his neck. The arena walls shake as he slammed back against them. It is very painful. Selene does not hold back, and Dirthamen does not counter her, at first. Her growl is low and her saliva is acidic. The scent of blood fills the air, as narrow pupils regard him furiously.

After a moment, Selene attempts to throw him aside. Away from the door.

Dirthamen shifts, ignoring the pain it causes his wounds, as his neck recedes from her mouth, and his wings vanish and reform again beyond her grasp. His limbs rearrange themselves and his flesh becomes like liquid, slipping away from all force she exerts, only to reform elsewhere. Selene coils around, and does catch him again. Teeth and claws. More blood. She has a great deal more maneuverability than others he has fought. But she reaches her limit before he meets his own, and as Dirthamen closes his own jaw in warning around her throat, she is left with magic as her only recourse.

Dirthamen is prepared for it, but Selene does not reach for it immediately.

  
Her breaths shake against his tongue.

“Why?” she asks him, hoarsely. “Why did you build this place?”

Dirthamen does not relinquish his hold to speak, but he does not have to. His voice slips into the air around them, without much thought.

“To contain our match,” he replies.

Selene swallows.

“I did not mean the arena,” she says. He can taste the anger on her now, too.

Ah.

After a long moment, in which the tension feels almost brighter than the building magic, Dirthamen relinquishes his hold on her. Her pulls back enough to see her eyes, and to see her injuries. His own blood mixes with hers across the floor, as the question strikes truer than her claws ever could.

Why did he play his part, in building this empire?

“It seemed reasonable at the time,” he admits.

There is a pause.

Then Selene begins to laugh.

Dirthamen does not think she is amused, though. The emotions pouring out of her are too difficult for him to parse, but mirth is not among them. He watches as Selene moves away from him, and curls in on herself. Her cuts bleed and her scales tremble, and soon her cannot tell if she is laughing or sobbing, or some strange combination of the two.

She does not attack him again.

And she does not resist him, when Dirthamen moves to lift her up. Her form diminishes with his as he shifts, then, following his lead until he finds himself holding a small dragon. He carries her out of the arena, and back into the open air, where there is less magical interference for the task of closing her wounds. Selene’s laughing-sobs taper off midway through his ministrations, and her nose moves upwards to nudge gingerly against the bite marks at his throat.

They tingle with the familiar warmth of a healing spell.

“I lost,” she surmises.

“You have left the arena,” Dirthamen replies. “That was the condition for victory. You may go where you wish, now.” It is not, he thinks, a perfect explanation, but this may be all he can do to demonstrate the experience of attempting to confront his family without exposing Selene to undue risk. And she may well wish nothing further to do with him, now.

Rather than celebrate, however, Selene curls deeper into his arms.

All the way back to the palace, she says nothing further. And when they arrive back, she curls herself into Des’ arms instead, and does not reply even when Des asks if she is sulking over her loss. Dirthamen leaves them be, and makes his way to his offices, to attend to the matters which have accumulated in his absence. He finishes the healing on his own superficial wounds. Closing off the bite marks and sealing over the places where he had been clawed. The wounds from his wings have relocated themselves to his biceps, but have remained the same size. He heals them over several times as he attends to other matters.

At first, he thinks the odd ache in his chest is a result of over-using his healing spells. He stops, and binds the wounds instead, and is on his way back to his chambers when the pain hits.

_Ice._

Cold so hard and do deep it feels almost like fire instead. It strikes him so viscerally that it knocks him to his knees. One hand flies to his chest, but it takes him a moment to realize that he is not feeling the pain in this form. That the iced blade protruding from him is splitting through dark feathers, is carrying into this body from his aspect. From Fear, who is at the eluvian in the palace archives. Who is pinned to the floor, and turns, but Dirthamen can already tell what they will see. Past the pain and the pressure, and the odd sense of  _void_  in the air, which Fear had gone to investigate, and which Dirthamen had been too distracted to devote proper focus to.

Falon’Din stares down at him, as the eluvian closes behind him.

“Dear brother,” he says, and twists the blade. “What is this news I have heard about  _consorts,_  hm?”

Oh.

No.


	7. Chapter 7

Dirthamen is endeavouring to reach his brother, and Fear.

He is not expecting Selene to beat him there.

In hindsight, perhaps he should have. He had only just observed, after all, the unerring way in which her gaze could find him, even through a labyrinth of his own construction. Something which should have obscured such things. Perhaps it was only luck, that her eyes found the right spot. He had not moved, after all.

But… Fear and Deceit have spent years in her company, by now. Dirthamen thinks he would notice a substantial connection, thinks he would recognize another bond - how could he not? - but the feelings which Selene evokes him are very different from what he feels for his brother, or his mother, or anyone else he has ever loved or felt connected to.

So he is not prepared, as Fear lies speared to the ground, and as Dirthamen endeavours to reach his brother, for the door to the eluvian chamber to explode.

Selene bursts through it like a comet. Her draconic form smashes the double-doors and the frame around them. The wood turns to splinters, a fierce, fiery rain that becomes a rush of ash and ember, which follow her into the chamber. Through Fear’s eyes, he sees her slam, bodily, into Falon’Din.

His brother is not expecting to be attacked by an unfamiliar dragon.

He is expecting Dirthamen. He is expecting shadows and evasion. Retaliation that might come from behind, or from above; for Fear to change shape, for the floor to give way, for any number of tricks which are common to Dirthamen’s arsenal. He has only just begun to adjust to the utterly unexpected assault, only just begun to shift into his own dragon form - Dirthamen can feel the bright flare of his panic.

And then Selene’s mouth closes over his head, and she bites down.

There is a  _snap._

Then there is blackness.

For a moment, Dirthamen is surprised to not feel anything. He wonders if, somehow, his bond to his brother truly had become so strained, that even his death would not feel as it should.

It had not.

It is shock.

The feeling of a bond that has defined his life since its earliest moment, abruptly being severed, is indescribable. The closest approximation would be the sundering of his own soul. His connection to his brother becomes a dark void, a wound that is widened and reopened until it feels large enough that Dirthamen might simply fall through it. All the tethers of their connection, their long lives entwined, become hooks that seek to pull him into death. He loses all perception of the world around him, of his shape, of his body, of even his thoughts.

Blood. Blood on her teeth. Green eyes, and blood on her teeth, and a voice calling for him…

But dwn and down and down he goes, sinking through the Dreaming, as his brother’s head still rolls across the floor.

 

~

Mythal does not feel it, when her eldest son dies.

She had never been sure if she would or not, if it came to it. And she still not sure, if such a thing is definitive of the experience of losing a child. Falon’Din had been a difficult child, after all. A hard man to love or care for. It had been a long time since she had felt any fondness for him. A long time since the days when she could look at him without seeing a great disappointment.

But he had still been her first son. Had been her Purpose, her sweet, precious spirit - the twin of her Longing, born of her drive, and of Elgar’nan’s wishes.

The news, when it comes, almost floors her. She is not expecting it, not in the least. Her spies had brought word of the…  _unusual_  company which Dirthamen had begun to keep. But she had only just begun to investigate that matter in earnest. Dirthamen’s impulses are rare, and often peculiar, and sometimes he is prone to flights of fancy or commits himself to bizarre projects. His effort to live like a Waking-born civilian, or his endeavours to create stones which harnessed lightning to count numbers, or the time he had vanished for two years and had turned out to only be wandering his own mountains. Examining the peaks, until he lost track of time.

A sudden affinity for bizarre consorts of questionable power and influence was not the sort of thing Mythal would  _ignore,_  but she had assumed that Dirthamen was in the midst of some scheme. That he was paying attention; that he not being careless, given the propensities of their enemies. Perhaps the Nameless had sent a spy or two, but she expected her son to  _recognize such_  - to be engaged in countermeasures. Perhaps ineffective or worryingly over-complex ones, with an eye to some prize which was not in the empire’s best interests - but those were impulses which Mythal could correct, and with the empire on the verge of some squabble that might become a civil war, she had larger concerns.

So she had thought.

The messenger interrupts her luncheon with several attendants and the Palace Resource Manager, and signals that sensitive information must be relayed. Mythal gives lead of the meeting over to Tarensa, and excuses herself, wondering if her eldest son has made good on his latest threats to his siblings, and killed the occupants of their embassies in his territories again. Such a  _mess_  that always is, it makes it nigh impossible to find willing replacements…

Her breast grows cold as she reads the content of the actual message.

An urgent request for her presence. Lord Falon’Din has been slain, his killer imprisoned, and Lord Dirthamen rendered insensate by the severance of his twin bond.

She re-reads the message, as for several moments, it almost makes no sense.

Lord Falon’Din has been slain.

Her violent, blood-soaked eldest, who has rarely lost a fight and never failed to flee from an opponent that was more than he could truly handle… has been killed? In the territories of his own brother? By a person whom Dirthamen’s followed - without assistance - somehow managed to  _detain?_

She is almost expecting it all to be some scheme, some deception, when she arrives in Dirthamen’s territories. It is abundantly clear that in the absence of their lord, however, her younger son’s sentinels have approached the situation with their default attitude - it is being kept as secret as possible. The palace is nigh overrun with Dirthamen’s highest ranking sentinels, and mute servants. The tension in the air is thick enough to cut, and spirits of Pain are far more abundant than she has seen them outside of war.

She is taken to Falon’Din’s body. Laid out in a ritual chamber - the sacrificial altar is gone, but her son’s body has been placed in the middle of the room. As if Dirthamen’s followers half expect that he might simply re-attach his head, and spring up, furious and wrathful. They have given his body a wide berth. Mythal wishes dearly that she could simply mend it, and summon his spirit back into it; and let that superstition become reality. But Falon’Din is only so much flesh and blood, now. HIs corpse is cold, and there is no opportunity to prepare for any revival. He has gone past the point where even Dirthamen could save him.

Which means that Dirthamen himself is being dragged towards his end.

_That_  bothers Mythal more. Frightens her more.

She loved Falon’Din. But she had resigned herself, years ago, to the fact that of all her children, he most deserved death. He would always have been more liability than not, in and of himself. And his own capacity for love was twisted. Even those he most regarded were mere ants, resting beneath the great mountain he sought to build for himself.

Mythal loved him, but there were days when she had thought of killing him herself.

Dirthamen, though…

Dirthamen is another matter.

Simpler, in a way. Mythal will not lose the most loyal and brilliant of her children, not if it can be helped. Dirthamen has clearly made a grave misstep, but he would not be the first of his siblings to do so, and Mythal has never forsaken her children for their mistakes. This  _will_  be solved.

By the time the delayed retinue of her own sentinels and peacekeepers begins to arrive, Mythal has been led by Dirthamen’s chief attendant to the healing rooms where her son has been hurried.

Give the abrupt and unforeseen nature of Falon’Din’s beheading, part of her is honestly surprised that he had not followed his brother before an intervention could even be made. Someone clearly  _did_  intervene, though. There is s a tether of a broken spirit - Deception, she thinks, or some other kind of falsehood; very befitting Dirthamen’s nature - that has been woven through his aspects, and is binding Dirthamen to… something. Someone. Not Falon’Din. And not in a way that he seems inclined to resist.

Whoever has done this thing has a  _rapport_  with her son. If Mythal did not know any better, she would say that the only person in his life who might accomplish such a feat would be herself. And yet, the evidence is before her. Dirthamen is a disjointed mess of limbs. Wings and tentacles and scales and feathers. Eyeless and faceless. Deep in the Dreaming; trying to follow his split soul to a place he cannot reach, with only this thin strand of mysterious connection binding him to the waking world.

Mythal’s lips thin as she contemplates the implications for a moment, before she settles in to work. First, she will save her son.

Then, she will determine what needs to be done, to salvage the rest of this mess.

“Bring me Falon’Din’s body,” she commands Dirthamen’s attendant. “And send a message to Thenvunin in my entourage. There is a Spirit of Longing in residence at my Autumn Estate. It is to be shattered, and the shards all brought to me at once. We have dire need of them.”

Such calamities are the reason why Mythal attempts to keep a reserve of the correct sorts of spirits, after all. She permits herself a moment of remorse for Longing, but only a moment, before she begins to bolster the existing tether with her own connection to Dirthamen. Spreading her own magical energy into the Dreaming, for her son to recognize.

By the time the spirit and Falon’Din’s body are brought, she has made little headway. But things have not worsened, at least. Mythal calls in several of her own people - Dirthamen’s remain suspect to her, in many ways, under the circumstances - and has Falon’Din’s body dismantled. His bones cracked open, his flesh transmuted, until every lingering fragment of him that built up over time has been siphoned away from the dead and useless flesh. She combines them with the shards of Longing. The end result is a force of magic that pulls at Dirthamen’s spirit with an irrefutable gravity.

It takes hours to thread the strands of energy through his ever-shifting veins. To make his own body a beacon which gradually draws his spirit back up from the depths where his twin soul bond has dragged it.

By the time Mythal deems the process sufficient to no longer require her direct observation, it is the dead of night, and she is exhausted.

The shock and the immediacy of the situation have settled, and a cold anger has replaced them.

“Take me to the one responsible for this,” she commands.

Her sons sentinels obey without reservation.

Mythal walks determinedly through the halls of her son’s palace. She can feel the whispers beginning within the walls, lingering in the atmosphere. The speculation, and an odd, fragile bubble of secrecy. For now, news of the incident has not spread far - but it will. Falon’Din is dead and gone, and that will be impossible to disguise. Already, monuments in his territory which were bound into his own life-force are likely failing. His highest priests have probably realized that something is amiss; she can only attribute their absence to the intervention of Dirthamen’s own people.

But it will come to a head.

The cell she is brought to is located within in the middle of the palace. Fortified, and typically used for housing dangerously corrupted spirits. Mythal is not personally familiar with the location, had never had cause to visit it before. The ceilings are unusually high; the space wide enough to provide some freedom of movement, even as it is designed to restrict access to the Dreaming.

The woman of calamity sits in the middle of the cylindrical chamber. Head bowed, eyes shut. There are scales upon her skin, and a long tail curled around her legs; and horns upon her head. Mythal knows what she is the moment she lays eyes upon her.

It takes her a moment longer to note the spirit shard in her grasp.

Dirthamen’s people must have imprisoned her in great haste, to have failed to notice that and remove it from her person. Luckily. Or perhaps they also realized what Mythal did - that here lies the other end of the tether that is currently keeping Dirthamen from dying.

For a moment, Mythal almost kills her anyway.

Instead, she waits. Hands folded before her. Watching this woman. This spirit which has manifested in the dragon form; which somehow grew powerful enough and knowledgeable enough to do that, and likely to do that within Dirthamen’s territories. Within their own empire.

Her son’s negligence, his curiosity, perhaps even his compassion, have all led to  _this._

She would never have guessed that Dirthamen would truly harbour a Keeper in secret. That he would be so foolish. He could not have expected to keep this a secret indefinitely; he would have known it was destined to end in pain and suffering, the longer he permitted it to go on for. Even by his own standards of avoidance, she cannot countenance him making such a decision.

So what else is going on?

“Tell me about her,” she commands her son’s chief attendant.

The masked figure - in all honesty, Mythal has trouble differentiating them apart from the obvious signs of their rank - bows, and obeys.

“She came to the palace some months ago, with no writing on her face, and a fierce magic about her. Calling herself ‘Selene’. Lord Dirthamen went to confront her, and in his own wisdom and judgment, deemed it acceptable for her to remain. He took her as consort, and permitted one of her spirit companions to be embodied and to join her. He did not deem us worthy of explanation, and it was not our place to question.”

How Dirthamen, of all people, has actually succeeded in cultivating the most obedient follower base in the empire, Mythal honestly does not know.

But in this one instance, it is proving particularly unhelpful.

She turns her attention to the subject of their conversation. Selene. A name derived from the moon; from Mythal’s own purview.

“You can hear me?” she asks.

Selene’s eyes open. They are a very striking green, Mythal notes. Dried blood stains her lips, but her emotions are unreadable.

“Yes,” she replies. Her voice is heavy. Tired, Mythal thinks.

“You killed my son.”

It is not what Mythal intends to say, at first. But it is the first sentiment to escape her, nevertheless. The Keeper tenses. A muscle in her jaw clenches, and her fingers tighten reflexively around the spirit shard. Gripping it hard enough to draw some blood across the jagged edges.

“Falon’Din,” is what Selene says, however. As if verifying a suspicion. Mythal does not answer, but she does not need to. “I did not know it was him, when I bit off his head. He was attacking Fear. He stabbed them. I only realized my misjudgment when Fear began to convulse… I would not have killed him, if I had known it would hurt my birds so badly.”

_Her_  birds?

Fear?

Her first thought is outrage, before she catches up with herself again, and calms. It must be Dirthamen’s Fear that Selene is referring to, she realizes, not some simple spirit. That this Keeper has laid some passive claim over Dirthamen and his aspects raises her hackles… but she forces herself to think. This is a tenuous situation. Falon’Din was not well-loved, but he had been feared. In empire built upon the might and power of its leaders, the most feared among them was required to seem unassailable in his sheer and terrible strength.

  
For Falon’Din to die at the hands of an outsider, of some unknown Keeper… it would be costly to the firmament of the empire. It would bolster the rebels, it would embolden the Nameless. No evanuris has ever been slain before. And while Mythal had entertained, in the past, the possibility that Falon’Din would day require confronting… she would never have allowed anyone  _apart_  from herself, from her own family, to be seen as strong enough to destroy him. Even knowing that it was, in all likelihood, a fluke, does not help.

The Leaders of the People cannot be seen as mere elves, to be cut down by misfortune or a lucky strike, as surely as anyone else might be. Because it is true, that they can be killed. That a sharp knife and the right moment can end them, even  _if_  their sheer might cannot be overwhelmed.

That is not a reality that the people can be permitted to acquaint themselves with.

And there are limited ways of mitigating it, now.

Killing Selene would only accomplish so much, and might further jeopardize Dirthamen’s recovery - at this point, anyway. Had she known of the woman’s existence before all of this, she would have acted much more quickly. Dirthamen has let her down in the worst possible way he could. But, done is done. The woman who killed Falon’Din is a virtual unknown. The circumstances of his death still hazy and shrouded in secrecy.

And Death’s god may be as mysterious and fickle as his Secretive Brother, in the end.

Selene, she thinks, cannot possibly divine Dirthamen’s state of being through the wards on her cell. Even as she grips the spirit shard, and clearly pours her energy through it, she probably has no idea whether Dirthamen’s circumstances have improved or deteriorated. Which means she has kept at this for hours and hours, for only the slimmest hope that it is even working.

Selene wishes Dirthamen to live.

Mythal can use that.

“You have robbed me of one son, and now I am forced to come to you, as a grieved parent, for you are my only hope of saving the other. Dirthamen is dying,” she says, and lets some of her dissatisfaction colour the air her.

Selene’s own expression wavers, just a little. Her gaze flits to the walls of her cell.

“Let me out,” she asks. “And I will be able to sense them all more fully. Dirthamen was hurt and so was Fear, but Deceit was not. They were closest to the top. I caught them before they fell too far… I tried to… Deception helped, but, it is like trying to hold a series of linked hands on the edge of a cliff…”

She wavers some more. Shows some of her inexperience. She is unaccustomed to guile.

Mythal sucks in a long breath through her nose, and lets it out again.

“I cannot release you. The punishment for assaulting a Leader of the People is death - but even through my grief, I know this situation is complex. Falon’Din broke our laws when he attacked his brother. I cannot imagine what possessed him to do such a thing. You were not wrong to defend Dirthamen, but I only have your word on this, for now. If Dirthamen awakes, he can tell me the truth,” she reasons. “But that is a very large ‘if’.”

Selene swallows.

“What can I do, then? There must be something…”

Perfect.

Mythal inclines her head.

“What ails my son is the sundering of his bond. To remedy the matter, he requires an anchor.” All true things. “He requires someone to replace Falon’Din. To fill the void left behind by the destruction of his connection to his brother.” And then comes the bending of the truth.

What Mythal needs is for Falon’Din to refute death. Or to appear to. For the sudden, unanticipated void left in their pantheon to be immediately and seamlessly filled - for someone connected to Dirthamen to patch over this gaping weakness, to cover up its existence entirely. Her eldest son is dead and gone.

But his place, the image of the God of Death, the reputation and worship and reverence built up into it - that has not yet been destroyed.

Selene opens her mouth, and then closes it again. The blood on her lips cracks. It makes a striking image, the analytical part of Mythal’s mind can concede. Very appropriate. This child may prove too brutal and untenable to be maintained, but a later rebellion on the part of a ‘reborn’ Falon’Din would be far easier for her to work with than this current disaster. Particularly given Dirthamen’s condition. If needs must be, Mythal can acquire the time to ease her son into uthenera, at least.

Far better to do that, than to kill this Selene  _now,_  and risk losing him altogether.

Yes.

This is the only clear path, for now.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking of me,” Selene admits.

“I am asking you to take Falon’Din’s place, to save Dirthamen,” Mythal explains, succinctly. “I may regret it. I do not know you, child, but I am willing to put some faith in your honesty. You have held Dirthamen here so far - I can only hope you owe him some loyalty. Some true allegiance.”

“I love him,” Selene says, more hotly than Mythal might have expected. “And you…”

“I?” Mythal replies, archly. Her own temper rises up like a frigid wind.

Selene swallows.

“You love him, too,” she says. Mythal does not think it was at all what she had planned to claim. But that is actually promising; perhaps the girl can be trained after all. Perhaps she can learn. Objectively, Mythal can concede, another June or Ghilan’nain would be a far sight better than Falon’Din. A reasonable figure; malleable.

Workable.

“That love is all that inspires this offer in me,” she says. “But if you do exactly as I say, we will fix your terrible mistake, and the awful harm you have done to him. And then we will see what else is to be done.”

Selene gives it only a moment more, before nodding.

“What must I do?” she asks, again.

Mythal summons one of her sentinels, and leans in close to issue her instructions. The beacon will have to be retrieved from where it is helping to stabilize Dirthamen, but inserting the remnants of Falon’Din into Selene - however scarce those might be - should bolster her existing connection to him exponentially, and allow her to build a far greater bond than could otherwise be forged in so short a time.

A Spirit of Connection will also be required. She bids another servant to retrieve shards that she has from one already in storage.

When she turns back towards Selene, she gives her a cold look.

“The first thing I will have from you, is a promise…”

 

~

 

One moment, Selene had been curled up in Des’ arms. Licking her wounds, and avoiding a conversation about her ‘bout’ against Dirthamen, while the former spirit attempted to wheedle information out of her anyway.

And the next, she had become sharply aware of one of the little spells she had placed on Fear breaking apart. Ice and pain, and  _danger._

Something had hurt Fear.

Someone was  _attacking her birds!_

She had leapt out of Des’ arms, and flown down through the corridor to where she had sensed the spell go out. It was just a little one. Hardly any magic at all, really - certainly not enough to interfere with what Fear and Deceit and Dirthamen had to do all the time. But ever since they had left her for so long in the tower, she had been afraid of losing track of them again. And while she could always follow the sense of where they were, what if they got hurt?

Just a little spell, just to make sure she would know if there was trouble.

And it had worked. And Selene had flown into the room to find a stranger looming over Fear. There was a darkness to his energy that made he feel sick. A sadistic delight in the pain he was causing, an edge of blood and death that seemed to cling to him, that made her at once certain that this creature was  _evil._  Evil, murderous, and  _hurting Fear._

She had not thought twice. She had barely even thought once. There were some tainted and corrupted beasts in the wilds near her tower; creatures that were warped by some dark spiritual energy, that became savage and mindless. They did not hunt. They simply killed. When Selene met them, she snapped their necks. She did not like killing, but there was not much else for it - letting them carry on would only mean more death.

And just as always, the dark creature’s neck snapped in her mouth before he could even put up much of a fight, or realize the end was upon him. Elven necks are tiny things, though. Not like bears or even wolves. The bite left his skull to roll inside her mouth; Selene spat it out in disgust, along with the rush of blood, and left the corpse to slump before she turned hurriedly towards Fear. Ready to offer what comfort and healing and reassurance she could.

Fear screamed.

It was a chilling sound, echoed in triplicate. Fear screamed, and somewhere else Dirthamen screamed, and somewhere else Deceit screamed, but they all screamed as one. And Selene could feel it, rattling through her own veins, shaking terribly inside of her. The rush of pain and shock and - and… what was wrong? The spear! Had it been poisoned?!

She rushed to check, but as she hurriedly healed the wound, she could not find anything wrong beyond the injury and some frostbite. Fear convulsed in her arms, though, and after a few moments it body began to twist, and Selene realized that it was not physical distress she was sensing, but  _spiritual._

As if something had torn into the shared soul of her birds.

Or torn  _from_  it.

Selene had not been well-versed in the concept of bonds, but she had been learning more. She knew Dirthamen had one, to his twin soul brother. She knew Falon’Din was terrible by reputation, and that Dirthamen did not volunteer information about him very often, except to warn her to stay away from him if at all possible. Des had offered her more knowledge. That Falon’Din took dark glee in causing harm. That his desires were twisted, and his territories were dangerous, and that Des had only gone there once and then never again.

Selene had looked at the broken corpse, and incongruously, for a moment all she could think was ‘oops’.

And then the real gravity of the situation had arrested her away, as she felt her birds begin to  _fall._  Like their spirits were tumbling into the Dreaming. For a moment, she had not known what to do. She was not a spirit anymore! She could not follow them there!

But… but maybe a shard, a piece of spiritual energy that she could control… perhaps  _it_ could…

_I am sorry,_  she had thought, to the memory of Deception.  _I am sorry, I am sorry, please do not shatter more, please do not burn out…_

It was a risk, and it was unfair. Deception had been a dangerous sort, but Selene had never thought to use its remains so selfishly. She had thought to bring them back to the Dreaming… and she still might. If she used more of her energy than the shards, she might not use it up…

It had taken all of her focus to try.

Time had turned hazy. Her awareness of her surroundings sank into that single note of connection, and the feelings from it. Loss, and confusion, and sinking sensation that was difficult to describe, but that pose the greatest threat to her task. That somehow felt like it was trying to reach up and then drag  _her_  down into death, too.

Or… something akin to death, anyway.

She knew when they brought her to the cell. And she was terrified when she felt the sense of connection dim down to the barest thread. But she could not fight and focus on the same time. And until Mythal came, there seemed to be nothing more pressing to address than that thread of connection to Dirthamen. To her poor birds.

_I did not mean to hurt_ **_you…_ **

She knew Mythal was not telling her the whole truth. That she wanted something from Selene, something which Selene would not, under ordinary circumstances, part with.

But she also did not know Mythal’s secrets. And the circumstances were not ordinary.

And now she is still in the cell. Still in the cell, but with Mythal, and with a  _thing_  made of Light and Longing, that burns like acid.  _A part of Falon’Din,_  Mythal had called it. Something in her is terrified, that it is poison. That it is all the evil she had sensed in him, in the seconds before she snapped his neck. Her lips burn and her eyes keep skittering away from the  _thing,_ which she does not wish to have near here.

But she cannot refuse it, either.

This is her mistake. One mistake, that had not seemed at all like a mistake while she was making it.

“Promise me that you will never harm another member of my family again,” Mythal demands.

Selene’s fingers ache. She stares at the other woman’s eyes, and lets herself hope for a moment that Mythal is like Dirthamen. People said she was kind. Selene had not quite been able to believe it, but… maybe she had once only  _thought_  this empire to be a good idea. Maybe it was the ones like Falon’Din who were the problem.

Maybe, if Selene helps, then things will get better.

“I promise,” she says.

Mythal moves the construct of spiritual energies towards her.

“Take it,” she instructs.

Selene unclenches one hand from the shard of Deception, and reluctantly accepts the offered orb. It feels warm. Like the stones she sometimes breathes fire onto, in order to heat a bed for her draconic form. She finally forces herself to look at it head-on, and she sees…

Just Light. And Longing. And faintly, something like… Determination? Purpose?

_“Take_  it,” Mythal reiterates, and Selene catches her meaning.

Take it into herself.

Her bond to Dirthamen feels so thin. She hesitates, but in the end, she is also still Devotion. And she has become devoted to her birds. To her love for them.

She swallows the light.

It  _burns._  Like fire she has never known could light up her veins. She feels brighter than the sun, she feels like a star that has reached its end, like the veneer on something inside of her has cracked and molten heat is spilling outwards. She thinks she screams. She knows she breaks the walls, that she shatters the chamber around her, and that the woman before her becomes a dragon, and swiftly kills all those who are watching. Quick and cutting, with magic like blades, that Selene thinks she would have blinked and missed.

But she does not miss it. Even with her eyes closed, for a few moments she feels as if she can  _see_  everything. She can feel something beating like a heart, deep on the bones of the world. Something crackling through the sky, like a thousand dragon wings caught in a storm. She chances shape, but she has no recollection of that. She only knows that the chamber becomes smaller and her body stretches, trying to physically accommodate the rush of power inside of her, in a way that perhaps does not really make sense - but she has forgotten what sense  _is,_  for now.

And then she feels it.

Dirthamen, so close. Dirthamen, still falling away.

She does not need Deception’s shard to catch him, now.

She is aware of someone shouting, and of the floor beneath her breaking, as she tunnels through to where she can feel him. Them. All of them. Walls crumble into ash and ember, or else part like waterfalls, until at last she finds the mess of tangled limbs and wings and wraps herself around it.

_Come back,_  she calls.

In a haze of heat and power-filled air, Dirthamen wakes.

In the rubble of the prison chambers, Mythal is given to a sudden and profound sense of regret.


	8. Chapter 8

Dirthamen wakes up.

This is a surprise.

He had been convinced that his brother was dead. But there is a dragon wrapped around himself and his aspects, and for a moment Dirthamen feels like a spirit again. Like Longing, tied to Purpose; the two of them shifting across one another, and bolstering and redefining each other.

For a moment, he thinks that his brother has saved him. And he is happy, and bewildered, because he would have expected Falon’Din to devour him in his weakness. To bring him under his thrall again, if he could. The bond through his being feels as it has never done, though, not even in his earliest memories. It is gentle and warm, and it gives him strength.

Fear and Deceit rustle their wings. Dirthamen opens two eyes, and feels tears slide down his cheeks.

And a moment later, of course, he realizes that his assumptions make no sense.

This is not Falon’Din.

His brother did not survive, and did not save him.

Selene makes a soft, rumbling sound of distress, and tightens her hold on him. Her scaled nose brushes up against the side of his head, as she lets out a tremendous exhalation.

“Sorry,” she says.

Dirthamen swallows. The bond still feels gentle, and warm, and different… but… it is  _there,_  and it should be broken. Where he once connected to his brother, though, he now feels only an ache. Where he connects to Selene, there is difference, but familiarity too. Like a room he knows full of furnishings he does not. The cognitive dissonance is very profound. He has never been without Falon’Din. Not entirely.

But this is not…

“You are not my brother,” he murmurs, as he tries to make sense of it.

Selene sighs.

“No,” she agrees. “I bit his head off and killed him. And then your mother made me drink the dust from his bones, so I could save you.”

…Ah.

He still has no idea what that means, but if his mother is involved, then Selene being alive likely has something to do with this catastrophe.

His brother is dead.

And it is his fault.

He has not even followed him. Cementing, perhaps, his permanent status as a terrible sibling. He had feared causing Falon’Din’s destruction, and now it has come to fruition. The Keeper he hid has killed bis brother, and his mother has reacted to that, and now Dirthamen is alive and bonded and somehow not unwell - and Falon’Din is less than dust.

A fate Falon’Din woud have greatly feared himself. Perhaps above all other things.

Dirthamen cannot escape the guilt.

Nor, it seems, can Selene, as it spills through their connection with little leave from him. He does not have the wherewithal to attempt mitigate things, and Selene does not appear to know how to block him off. Her breath catches, and she pulls him, somehow, closer. After a moment, her form shifts. Dirthamen finds arms around him, rather than scales. He feels fear that is not his own, and guilt that is Selene’s, but also something harder.

Selene is upset that she hurt Dirthamen.

She feels bad about destroying… something.

But she is not upset that Falon’Din is gone.

Few people, Dirthamen thinks, truly would be at this point. But once his brother would have had many sincere mourners.

Now he only has two. Mother and brother. And he would have been furious to know that they outlived him, by any measure at all. It is not the fate Falon’Din would have aspired to. He will never achieve greatness by his own measure, nor Dirthamen’s, nor anyone else’s at this point. He will never again suffer, and he will never find the satisfaction that eluded him.

And he will hurt no one else.

Dirthamen does not know what feels worse. The grief or the relief. The fact that he can feel either seems equally condemning.

“I am sorry,” he tells Selene. Because he is sorry that she has become interwoven with all of this. Quite literally, now. It will be difficult for her to ever escape him. And Dirthamen is not a good person to be bonded to.

“Shush,” Selene tells him, though it comes some time after his whispered apology. She kisses his beak - hm, not quite the shape he had supposed he had - and buries her fingers in his feathers, and twines their legs together. Her heartbeat feels steady against his side. He wallows in the multitude of feelings. Losing himself to the possibilities that will never come. The bittersweet longing for all that could have been. He feels weak and tired, stretched and broken, and then put back together again. The warmth of her touch on him is grounding. The press of her lips keeps him from spiralling down to far. Drawing him back up to feel it again, and again, until his shoulders ache from her gentleness.

It takes an embarrassingly long while for him to realize that there is no roof over their heads.

Or rather, that there is only part of one. The walls are damaged, too. The palace seems to have undergone some form of assault. Selene has erected some sort of barrier around the room. He thinks there might be people beyond it, but he has no energy to check, and his vague inquiry is only met with dismissal.

“Ceiling?” he asks.

“…Sorry,” Selene says, again. With a faint note of embarrassment.

The light in the room changes twice, before Selene finally gets too hungry to keep laying with him, and the world finally intrudes upon them again.

The barriers go down, and Dirthamen’s mother strides in, as if she had simply been waiting for them to the entire time. Dirthamen knows he should acknowledge her, that he should stand and at least attempt to make himself presentable. But he cannot. Instead he simply lies there, as she comes towards him. As she presses a hand to his cheek, and Selene’s expression goes tight, and he feels her unease.

She made a deal with his mother.

One she does not actually know the full details of, he would guess, by the shape of her disquiet. Now that the crisis is past, there is time to regret hasty decisions.

“You are very weak,” his mother informs him. He is not certain if it is an assessment of his current state, or his enduring character, or both. But either way, it is true. Dirthamen nods, and his wings flutter some. Fear and Deceit are still coiled within him. It is not a comfortable state of being - they wish to be separate - but for now, as disoriented as they are, it is needed.

His mother glances towards Selene.

“This is a problem,” she announces. “Your brother’s replacement is untrained and untrustworthy, and you are not fit to lead right now. You are not in your sisters’ good graces, after the recent conflict, and I cannot manage three territories at once. I am going to have to summon your father, to restore order.”

Dirthamen sits up. His wings tilt oddly, and his balance is not good, but he manages it. Selene reaches for him. Mother’s gaze lingers on her hand, as it closes around Dirthamen’s… limb. Of sorts.

“I will be able to attend my duties in a few days,” he asserts.

“You will not,” his mother refutes, straightening her back. “Dirthamen. What you have done cannot be ignored. Falon’Din is dead.”

He withers beneath the condemnation of that statement. The betrayal in her gaze.

“ _I_  killed Falon’Din,” Selene says. “Do not put that at his feet.”

“I will put the whole of it there,” Mythal retorts, sharply. The tension in the air heightens. Selene meets his mother’s gaze, and there is something calculating in her own. Before, he would not have imagined that Selene could become more… stubborn, perhaps, would be the word. And yet, she seems worryingly unyielding, even as he can feel her wariness through the bond.

She is not underestimating his mother.

But she is still arguing with her.

“ _You_  are his fault,” Mythal continues, circling around so that she can face Selene directly. “Everything you have done, and everything you will do, is now his fault. My only living son’s reputation, life, dignity, and legacy, all rest in your reckless hands. Despite my every wish for him, you have gained the power to undo him in a single poor decision - and he will forever bear the burden of your choices.”

Selene is disturbed. Dirthamen watches, and finds the speech familiar. It is a more volatile verison of the one his mother once delivered to him, to emphasize the importance of his role as his brother’s anchor and guardian.

Selene is bonded to him now. Bonded through some small part of what remained of Purpose, in his brother’s being. A fragment.

A sliver.

But he sees clearly, now, what his mother intends. Death and Knowledge. The dual forces of the unknown.

Selene will be Falon’Din, now. So far as the empire is concerned, anyway.

Part of him is relieved. That reduces the odds of her being killed out of hand significantly.

Most of him, however, is disturbed on more levels than he can articulate. Selene is not his brother. She is not. She does not deserve that.

“Mother…” he begins.

“Silence,” his mother demands, in a tone of voice that would not brook argument even if Dirthamen was at full strength. As he is now, it quells him as swiftly as a candle dropped into an icy lake. Her gaze does not even bother to leave Selene’s eyes, as the two women stare one another down.

“I will summon your father,” she reiterates, addressing him but looking at Selene. “As far as the People are concerned, your brother has undergone a transformation. Not unlike the one which you experience when you created Fear and Deceit. Your father will escort your changed ‘brother’ back to his territories, and ensure no enterprising individuals kill her before she has a chance to learn how to assume her new duties. And I will remain here, to clean up what remains, and help you heal.”

“No,” Selene says, at once. “I am not leaving my birds.”

“This is not a debate,” Mythal informs her.

“It has become one. I promised not to harm your family, I never said I would let you send me away,” Selene argues. “Dirthamen is hurt, I am not leaving him.”

“You are hardly abandoning him to the wolves,” his mother retorts, radiating unimpressed displeasure. “He is my son. I will look after him.  _You_  have put him in this state.  _You_  will now repair it, insofar as it is possible to repair - which means that you will go with my husband to Falon’Din’s territories, and assume the duties of the man you killed.”

“No,” Selene insists, again.

“This is final,” his mother reiterates.

It is a long argument, that follows. Dirthamen loses track of it, after a time. He thinks his mother might be winning, or at least that she should be, but that Selene is being too intractable to care. She folds her arms, and looks far more at home in the ruins of the healing chamber than his mother; who seems as if she has been displaced from somewhere more fitting, to stand in this broken scene.

He knows she will get her way, however. Selene may be intractable, but his mother has an empire, and Dirthamen is not much help right now.

Eventually he drifts off into the Dreaming again.

He knows he is right when he wakes again in a different set of rooms - ones without broken walls - and through bond, only knows that Selene is very far away. Alive, and well, and far away. It is almost possible to forget that the bond within him is anchored to her, and not to his brother, with that level of ambiguity.

He supposes that is what his mother is hoping for, as he sits up, and feels alone in a way that he has not felt since Selene came to the palace.


	9. Chapter 9

The more Selene learns about Falon’Din, the more she wishes she had known it all  _before_  she killed him.

Just so that she could have actually appreciated the moment much better.

Of course, if she had known who he was  _before_  she killed him, then she probably would not have killed him for fear of harming her birds. But, that would have been a mistake. Her birds are hurt, yes, but they are recovering. She can feel them - so she knows it is true, even if Mythal has successfully run her away from their side.

And since that is true, then she can no longer say that she regrets snapping Falon’Din’s head off like a brittle twig.

It is a sentiment she comes to gradually.

Elgar’nan is a loud man. She does not like him. He cannot tell that she is not his own son, and taking her as such, he insults her often. She knows he is not really insulting  _her_ , but it is difficult to like someone who bellows insults all the time, just the same. Moreover, he does not really listen to her, at first. He barks orders and makes demands, and struts about in a manner that, she thinks, is not so different from the son she killed.

They take a contingent of his followers, his ‘peacekeepers’ with them, and meet with more ‘peacekeepers’ - who have different markings on their faces, but who answer to Elgar’nan as well - as they journey to Falon’Din’s capital city and chief palace. While Selene is, on the one hand, glad that she is not expected to be involved in all the shouting and ordering, she enjoys none of it, and wants only to turn around go back to Dirthamen.

Some of the new peacekeepers, the ones with different markings, look to her oddly. They call her ‘Lady Falon’Din’, stuttering over the phrasing sometimes, and when Elgar’nan barks orders there are few moments when they look at her. As if to see whether she will endorse them or not.

Selene does. When that happens. She is not sure she  _wants_  to endorse Elgar’nan’s orders, but she has no real idea what to contradict them with, either. It just seems foolish to risk things when she has no idea what would even be  _effective,_  so she lets it go on, feeling the knots in her stomach tighten as the man ferries her and an army of strangers to a place that looks like a shattered piece of obsidian that someone has planted on top of a skull.

_This_  is Falon’Din’s capital, it seems.

The broken piece of obsidian is his palace.

Selene and Elgar’nan are expected to ride at the head of a procession. Selene has never ridden before. The animal they give her is sleek, large cat, with teeth and claws aplenty. Bone armour is placed over it, and it looks uncomfortable. When she moves a piece, she finds scars beneath. Fur worn away, and old marks healed over. The creature looks at her with glassy yellow eyes, and she feels a faint, animalistic sort of  _resignation_  from it.

She does not want to ride it.

“Get on the damn cat, Falon’Din, we do not have all day,” Elgar’nan snaps at her.

Selene glares.

“No,” she decides.

The response seems to, at least, baffle Elgar’nan more than anything.

“What is wrong with the beast?” he asks her, then. He is already seated atop his own mount. It is a different sort of animal, though, and one he rode for most of their trip. A fat, horned pig, that does not seem to have been broken in - judging by the way it noses at people’s hands for treats, anyway.

“It has been mistreated,” Selene explains, forgetting to think, for a moment. This is Falon’Din’s mount; Falon’Din himself likely mistreated it, and she is currently pretending to be Falon’Din. But she carries on, squaring her shoulders and looking at the bone armour on the cat, working out where it has been attached and how to take it off. She starts unhooking pieces. Elgar’nan grumbles something but, after a minute, he gets down off of his boar, and comes to see what she is doing.

She gestures to the scarred flesh. Several of the other elves exchange uncertain looks, and the one who had led the mount in from the giant skull gate starts to look nervous.

“I do not see the problem,” Elgar’nan says, impatiently.

Selene gestures to the scarred flesh again.

“The wounds are old,” he says, more confusion sinking into his impatience.

“I am not going to ride a beaten old cat,” Selene says, and finally gets the heaviest armour piece off.

This, at least, seems to clear up Elgar’nan’s confusion. He rolls his eyes, and shakes his head at her.

“We will not delay further to satisfy your vanity. The mount is fine; the armour covers the scars, and you were particular enough of it to hound Ghilan’nain for one already broken in! It will take at least an hour to get another suitable beast from the city-”

Selene’s lip curls.

“I am not going to ride  _anything!”_  she insists. “I would not trust that any beast from  _this place_  has been treated any better. It is cruel! I would rather walk.”

Elgar’nan’s confusion returns. A lot of the other elves look baffled, too, but Selene finally feels at least  _one_  knot start to untangle from her stomach. She is not going to just - just  _be_  Falon’Din. They cannot make her. Mythal needs her to do this? Then she will just have to put up with her doing it in an entirely different way.

If worst comes to worst, then she will just bite  _all_  their heads off.

After a few more minutes, though, the elf who had brought the big cat hastily takes it away again. Looking as though she is grateful to escape some kind of wrath. Elgar’nan protests until Selene makes it clear that she intends to go through the city, but just on foot, and  _no,_  she does not see a problem with that. And then he almost seems pleased to be the only figure riding at the head of the procession. Shoulders back, silver hair gleaming in the sunlight as a few sparks of flame dance around the crown he is wearing, and Selene just walks at the head of the Peacekeepers behind him.

There is a crowd, for some reason. Selene does not know what to do with so many eyes on her. They cheer, and call for Lady Falon’Din - so, she supposes, word has come ahead of them. The streets beyond the main road look very patchy, though, and the city is… unpleasant. The way it is put together makes Selene feel as if she is being led down a tunnel, with blinders on the sides of her vision. The path before her looks stark and grand and intimidating, with polished walkways and sharp sconces, that hold blood-red veilfire. It all leads up to the palace, which sits like a massive, dark stone. Gold lining its gates, and pinning together the bones of several skeletons which hang from the main archway, with jewels in their eyes.

But when she turns and looks past the crowds, she sees narrow streets, and dusty buildings, and even a few spirits showing worrying signs of corruption. They flit through the corners, trying to keep out of her sight.

And when she looks at the people  _in_  the crowd, they drop to their knees.

Even Elgar’nan’s cheerful pig seems uncomfortable, breathing more heavily and requiring some coaxing as they make their way past the skeleton arch. Fountains with red water bubble at the mouth of a wide courtyard, and just beside the main gate to the palace, there stands a massive statue of the man she killed just four days ago.

Selene stops, and looks up at it.

Arrayed at the base are several more elves. These ones are more finely dressed than those who had been in the crowds. They are clad mostly in black or white, with red jewels hanging from their necks and ears, and owl skulls used as frequent adornments. Most of them are hooded. One of them is not; a tall elf with colouring similar to Elgar’nan, has instead woven his hair into an elaborate piece dotted with jewels and more small animal skulls, coated in silver, or maybe some kind of paint.

He is the one who approaches them, first. Bowing to Elgar’nan, before he comes and kneels in front of Selene.

“Our Great Leader returns to us,” he says.

His tone is very deferential. But his eyes, when they look up at her, are shrewd. Selene dislikes the icy quality of his stare. It is pale, and calculating, and it makes her think of creatures that eat the flesh of their own brethren.

“Word was sent to us. We knew better to think you had truly fallen, my Lady, but your…  _regeneration_  has caused some complications. I will, of course, apprise you of all you wish to know, whenever you deem fit. Your priests are at your eternal service.”

Selene hesitates.

“…Fine,” she says.

She has no idea what this man’s name is.

…She has no idea what  _any_  of their names are.

That might be a problem. But if the man is offended by her lack of proper acknowledgement, he does not show it. Instead he gets up off of his knees, and keeps his head deferentially bowed - it takes Selene a moment to realize he is deliberately avoiding standing taller than she is - until several others approach.

Then the entourage is broken up. Elgar’nan announces that he is tired from travelling and has ‘much to see to’ to ‘fix Falon’Din’s mistake’. A lot of tension comes into the air at that, but after a few minutes he just goes off with several of the lead peacekeepers. Servants come to escort the rest to ‘the barracks’, and then a demure-looking figure, dressed in gold jewellery and little else, approaches and informs Selene that her chambers have been prepared.

“In the usual way,” the… servant? Perhaps? The Head Servant, maybe, tells her. She keeps her eyes on the ground as she speaks. “We did not know if Our Lady would wish things done differently, or not.”

Selene resists the urge to sigh.

Another thing she’s probably just going to have to bluff her way through.

“The usual is fine,” she says. However Falon’Din likes his bedsheets arranged is probably not going to be a big issue, she thinks.

Twenty minutes later, she realizes she is very, very wrong, as she stands in Falon’Din’s chambers and stares at the scene in front of her.

There is a bed. And there are blankets on it. And that is about the end of things she would reasonably expect to be in a ‘standard preparation’ bedroom. The rest of the room’s contents include, but are not limited to:

\- A gigantic golden bird cage with a few cushions on the floor, but no bird in sight.

\- An inexplicable pole in the middle of the room.

\- A rack with a bizarre array of impractical weaponry arranged on it.

\- A floor-to-ceiling alcove filled entirely with gilded skulls.

\- A pool that looks like it is full of blood.

\- A gigantic stone carving of Falon’Din’s head.

\- A square segment of floor with several bolts at the corners, and what looks like a (thankfully  _inactive)_ sacrificial altar in the middle.

\- A glowering, naked elf, wearing a golden collar, who is currently chained to the inactive altar via the corner bolts.

\- Some kind of corrupted Desire spirit lurking in the corner of the room like an angry spider.

“Um,” Selene manages to get out.

The glowering elf closes their eyes, and after a tense and awkward moment - which is mainly just Selene, attempting to process what exactly she is looking at - they take on an air of resignation that makes her think, horrifyingly, of the big armoured cat, and slump themselves over the altar.

“Welcome home, my Lor… my Lady,” they say. No ounce of affection or coyness or anticipation in their voice. Muscles tense, as if bracing themselves for something terrible.

Selene feels like she is going to be sick.

  
She decides to be sick in the giant pool of red stuff. Blood? Probably blood. But at least it is already unpleasant. Her stomach revolts and the knots in it protest, but after a moment, her nausea subsides just enough that she does not have to bolt for it.

Instead, she just feels all the blood rush away from her, as she hurries over to the chained elf.

“No,” she says. “No, no, this is not - no. We can just… let me just, unchain you..”

The elf freezes at her touch. Selene tries very hard not to use her imagination to delve into the likelihood of  _why,_  as she focuses on the shackles instead. They look to be attached to the elf’s collar, which does not seem to have any obvious point of removal. The chains do, though, and Selene finds that they come away in her hands readily enough. Tingling and itching a bit at that slightly-unsettled piece of Purpose still meshed into her, but in a way that just makes her think like-kind magic is interacting.

When she finally gets the poor elf unhooked from the altar, they look at her with a sort of dazed confusion. But not really a  _inquiring_  sort of dazed confusion. Selene does not get the impression that they are upset  _or_  that they are relieved, and when she steps back to give them some space, they just sort of stand in place. Glassy-eyed, like the big cat, and waiting.

Selene looks around, and wonders what exactly she should do.

“Do you have clothes?” she asks.

The elf just blinks.

Selene glances to where the Desire spirit is still lurking in the corners.

It makes her think of Des.

She wishes Des was here. He would probably have a better idea of what was going on, and what to do about it. She should have asked him to come, but… it is dangerous, and leaving him to keep an eye on Dirthamen and Mythal had seemed smarter.

After a moment, Selene looks back at the strange elf.

“What is your name?” she asks.

_That_  seems to get a reaction. The elf goes still, and the nature of their confusion shifts, distinctly. And the Desire spirit in the corner seems to ripple with confusion, too, and suspicion as well. Nebulous and unhappy, but also, clearly surprised. Selene wonders what she did and then decides she can only wait to see.

_I bit his head off,_  she reminds herself. Dirthamen insisted that his family was dangerous, and maybe so, but Selene still bit his head off. So dangerous, but not indestructible. Not unbeatable.

This strange elf has blue eyes. Like the priest who spoke to her. But they look very different, even when something very like shrewdness seems to come into them. Just for a moment. Staring right through Selene, and weighing all of her parts, as her question lingers oddly in the air.

“You are not Falon’Din,” the elf concludes.

She hesitates.

“…No,” she admits, then. Maybe it is a stupid thing to admit, in the middle of Falon’Din’s palace, while she is  _supposed_  to be playing a part. But Selene is not an actress, and she does not  _want_  this elf to think that she is Falon’Din.

“What happened?” the strange elf asks, tilting their head. The sharpness in their countenance seems to get a little sharper.

Selene thinks she should probably not just blurt out the whole truth.

“I bit his head off,” she says, anyway.

And if nothing else, it makes the stranger smile.


	10. Chapter 10

It takes time for them to regain enough stability that Deceit can manifest.

But they manage it more quickly than Mother anticipates, too.

Dirthamen waits until he can maintain his current form without wings for a few days before he attempts it, though. Mother would noticed if he suddenly lost a pair of wings. Deceit separates during the night, though. Smaller than usual, a form more like a small black sparrow than a raven’s. But still sufficient to their needs.

_Go,_  all three aspects determine. And Deceit flies, flitting through the open crack of their window, and out into the night sky. Soaring into the city, with a small magelight to guide the way, until they find the path into one of the city’s eluvians. From there, they make their way through the crossroads. The atmosphere feels heavier than usual, and tires them out more quickly. But they manage. They reach their secret pathways, and pass through the Sunken Library, and thence into a winding and secret road, that leads to their brother’s lands.

To Selene’s now, they suppose.

From there things get easier. They find a path to the palace, overhearing the murmurs of fascinated spirits and gossiping followers. There is much talk, but Deceit cannot take time to parse all of it. The layers of subterfuge that are innate to these territories are bolstering, though. They dine upon lies and pretenses for a while, enough to sustain them and restore some of their energy. Until they finally reach their brother’s throne room, flying down from a hidden entrance in the tall, dark chamber.

There are sounds of hammers, ringing through the air. The crack of magic. Deceit counts several figures in the room, but they are tired enough from their journey, too, that they do not stop themselves. When they see Selene, standing in the middle of the surrounded by glittering rubble, she seems to realize their presence too. She looks up, eyes wide.

Deceit dives down, and lands heavily on her shoulder. And then plasters themselves up against her neck, letting out an involuntary cheep of delight. Ruffling feathers against smooth scales, and feeling pleasant warmth sink right through to their bones.

_Selene._

She lifts a hand up and closes it around them, and then immediately stuffs them down the front of her shirt.

It is very warm and soft and dark, though, and Deceit is still tired, so they do not mind. They settle between her breasts, and listen to her voice raise sharply as someone calls what sounds like a question to her. She folds her arms, but not tightly enough to squish them. Deceit makes themselves comfortable, and pets some of the scales beneath her collarbone with their beak, and rests for what feels like the better of an hour. Selene talks, but they are still having some troubles parsing out words. The rhythm sounds firm, perhaps even a little annoyed. There is a lot of magic, and rumbling. Something crashes against the floor. Various other voices drift by, asking questions and making comments, mostly in tones of great deference. Some of the voices, Deceit knows. They recognize their brother’s servants. Some priest, they think, comes and makes comments and Selene’s aura cracks with distaste, and she withdraws swiftly from the interaction.

Good.

At length, Selene moves a lot. Just when Deceit is beginning to become dazed by her rapid footsteps, however, she stops again, and then her hand closes around them and pulls them free of her shirt once more.

She gives them many kisses.

Deceit approves.

“My bird,” she says, exuding relief. There are tears in her eyes when she looks at them, and her fingers curl carefully around their feathers. She brushes a finger across their head. Deceit leans into the touch. “You are very small.”

“I am weak,” they admit. “I will get better, though. And I was strong enough to come find you.”

“I have been trying to get away!” Selene assures them. “There is a lot to do, though. Your brother was the worst at everything.”

Deceit blinks.

“He was good at some things,” they defend.

“No,” Selene says. “Nothing worth being good at, I think. I am sorry. I hate him a lot, and am very angry about it right now, so perhaps we should not talk about it. But I have to fix things. Glory and their Desire have been helping me, but it is  _very_  complicated. They are good Shiny Ones, though. Like Des. Also, your father is an immensely stupid man.”

Deceit blinks again, but before they can formulate a response to this - they are unaccustomed to such assertions, particularly so boldy made - Selene kisses their head and starts cuddling them again. And they do not find themselves inclined to argue the point anyway, so after a few moments, they simply enjoy the contact. The room around them appears to be Falon’Din’s bedchamber, though it is lacking its usual accoutrements. There are clear signs of furnishings having been removed, and the statue of his brother’s head has been taken out as well, and replaced with what seems to be a very large fireplace. Selene carries them over towards it, and settles them into their lap. Her tail curls across the stone seat, and she begins warming them both.

“How is the rest of you?” she asks, after a moment.

Deceit fluffs their feathers, in the avian equivalent of a shrug.

“We are still weak, but we will recover,” they admit. “Des is concerned, but he is gifted at appeasement, so Mother does not object to him.”

Selene frowns, and thinks about this for a while. She seems more grave than is customary, but, perhaps that is only to be expected. Much has happened, and… they have not managed to preserve her good opinion of the world, they suspect. Not that things ever truly deserved it, but they wish they could have kept her safe for longer. Perhaps they would not have failed their brother as well, if they had.

It is so strange, to process that grief. They are having troubles doing so, truly  _feeling_  the loss - perhaps because, in a sense, it truly was interrupted by the odd spirit-grafting that cemented Selene in his place.

Being back in Falon’Din’s territories does not seem to magnify the grief much. It had been a long while since Dirthamen came to this place. Deceit has not forgotten why, either.

“This is a very dangerous place,” they say. “My brother has many followers who are not… compassionate people.”

“I know,” Selene says. “I would have been in a lot of trouble, but I found Glory. Glory knows a lot about who is alright and who is not. So does their Desire, though I only just got her a body, so she is making adjustments. She needed one, though, she was not doing well as a spirit. This place is very poisonous.”

Deceit blinks.

Ah.

Glory.

“My brother did Glory a great disservice,” they admit.

Selene’s expression turns stormy. Before they can speak further on the matter, however, the chime for the chamber door goes off. Selene motions for Deceit to be quiet, and tucks them safely onto the cushions next to the fire, before getting up and heading for the entrance. After a moment she sighs, and then opens the doors.

“Oh, good, it’s you two,” she says, before motioning a pair of elves into the chamber.

Glory enters. They are attired in their council meeting garb, Deceit notes, though with far less jewellery than is customary. The elf beside them is less easily identified. She is shorter than them, though not be much, and far too round for his brother’s tastes. She is dressed more like a guard than an attendant or advisor, and there is a sharp blade at her side. But also a newness to her demanour, that leads Deceit to doubt she actually knows how to wield it very well just yet. She shadows Glory closely, even after the chamber door has been shut.

“High Priest Talyl has gone to Arlathan. He is almost definitely conspiring against you at this point, but his options are limited…” Glory trails off, and then points directly at Deceit. Their expression goes stony. “That is a Dirthamen.”

“That is Deceit,” Selene clarifies. “It is fine, they are one of my birds.”

There is a moment of silence. Deceit would venture to call it ‘awkward’, before the elf called Desire lets out a low hum.

“That actually explains a lot,” she decides.

“If you kill that, it will probably set back Dirthamen’s recovery again,” Glory asserts, folding their arms and subjecting Deceit to a decidedly icy stare. Though still distinctly…  _detached,_  too. Deceit does not gain the impression that they are really being  _seen,_  or rather, that their physical form is not. An unpleasant reception would likely be merited in any case.

“ _No,”_  Selene says, firmly. She moves towards them, and scoops them back up. “I do not want to set back Dirthamen’s recovery, and no one is to ever hurt Deceit.”

Glory stares at them for a long moment, before finally letting out sigh.

“As you like,” they permit. “But it  _is_  ‘deceit’. Trusting it seems unwise.”

Deceit blinks, and then looks up at Selene.

“I  _am_  full of lies,” they permit.

Selene kisses the top of their head.

“I know,” she assures them. “It is going to be very useful, I think. Especially if you can tell us all you know about Falon’Din’s followers.”

Deceit considers that.

They do not have any reason to avoid it, come to it. Their affection for Falon’Din never seemed to extend towards the people he most respected. Many of them hated Dirthamen in turn, though their followers have always been closely associated, and share many ties.

As well as a great deal of information.

“Certainly,” they agree.


End file.
